The locative dystopia

Abstract

Locative media uses portable, networked, location aware computing devices for user-led mapping and artistic interventions in which geographical space becomes its canvas. The discourse of locative media gestures to a convergence of the digital domain and geographical space, and the course it plots towards this future demands not only that data be made geographically specific but also that the user - if not defined by their location - at least offers up their location as a condition of entering the game. In this respect, not to mention its choice of tools, locative media operates upon the same plane as military tracking, State and commercial surveillance, forcing a consideration of how locative media might challenge, or be complicit with such forms of social control