A Creative Exploration of the Use of Intelligent Agents in Spatial Narrative Structures

This thesis is an interdisciplinary study of authoring tools for creating spatial narrative structures– exposing the relationship between artists, the tools they use, and the experiences they create. It is a research-creation enterprise resulting in the creation of a new authoring tool. A prototype collaborative tool for authoring spatial narratives used at the Land|Slide: Possible Futures public art exhibit in Markham, Ontario 2013 is described. Using narrative analysis of biographical information a cultural context for authoring and experiencing spatial narrative structures is discussed. The biographical information of artists using digital technologies is posited as a context framing for usability design heuristics. The intersection of intelligent agents and spatial narrative structures provide a future scenario by which to assess the suitability of the approach outlined in this study

Negative space of things: a practice-based research approach to understand the role of objects in the Internet of Things

This is a practice-based research thesis situated in the research context of the ‘Internet of Things’, and critiques contemporary theoretical discourse related to the 21st century turn of connecting everyday objects to the World Wide Web. In the last decade we have seen the ‘Internet of Things’ articulated predominately through three commercial design fictions, each a response to the shift towards pervasive”, “ubiquitous” (Weiser 1991), or “context-ware” (Schilit, 1994) computing; where we inhabit spaces with objects capable of sensing, recording and relaying data about themselves and their environments. Through reflecting upon these existing design fictions, through a new combination of theories and practice-based research that embodies them, this thesis proposes a recovery to understanding the role of objects in the ‘Internet of Things’, which this author believes has been lost since its conception in the mid 2000s. In 2000, HP Labs presented Cooltown, which addressed what HP identified as the ‘convergence of Web technology, wireless networks, and portable client devices provides’. Cooltown’s primary discourse was to provide ‘new design opportunities for computer/communications systems, through an infrastructure to support "web presence" for people, places and things.’ (Anders 1998; Barton & Kindberg 2002). IBM’s Smarter Planet followed this in 2008 and shifted importance from the act of connecting objects to understanding the value of data as it flows between these objects in a network (Castells 1996; Sterling 2005; Latour 2005). Finally, Cisco presented The Internet of Everything in 2012 and moved the argument on one stage further, identifying that the importance of connected objects lies in the sum of their communication across silos of networks, where data can provide potential insight from which you can improve services (Bleecker 2006). Despite these design and theoretical fictions, the affordances of the Internet of Things first proposed in the mid 2000s has regressed from data to product, driven largely by unchanged discourse argued by those designers at its conception and also the enticement of being the next Google acquisition; instead of pigeons reporting on the environmental conditions of a city (Da Costa 2006), we have thermostats controllable from your smartphone (www.scottishpower.co.uk/connect). Therefore the aim of this thesis is to re-examine the initial potential of the Internet of Things, which is tested through a series of design interventions as research for art and design, (produced as part of my EPSRC funded doctoral studies on the Tales of Things and Electronic Memory research project and also whilst employed as a research assistant on two EPSRC funded research programmes of work Sixth Sense Transport, and The Connected High Street), to understand how we use data to allow an alternative discourse to emerge in order to recover the role of a networked object, rather than producing prototypical systems

FUTURE PASSENGER : Mobile, Public, and Locative Media A Study of Mixed Reality Narrative, Interface, and Content to Engage Train Passengers

Google Maps and other living maps (e.g. CartoDB, Mapbox, and Open Street Map) provide an underlying platform for ever more creative, networked, and performative mobile experiences (Dalton, 2015). Furthermore, immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR) provide a spatial paradigm to further connect us to our immediate surroundings. Combining these locative and spatial technologies offers new ways to engage with public spaces (Liao & Humphreys, 2015). This practice-based PhD research aims to use a mobile AR project, Fantasia Express, funded by the UK Ministry of Transport, to investigate a new concept that I call hybrid public space, one that is defined by an interdependent locative digital layer linked to a physical twin. In doing so, I want to create new knowledge that has value to both the creative industries and academics looking to understand the convergence of immersive technology with location and publicness. As a theoretical framework, this thesis considers the insights into the social impact of AR and other technologies, such as their potential to enhance our experience of public space and each other to create a ‘community of strangers’ (De Waal, 2013). My methodological approach encompasses several elements, such as an extensive literature review, developing complex software prototypes, and testing these prototypes with train passengers travelling on the East Coast Mainline. My findings summarise a new approach and design process to develop interfaces for immersive locative projects, new technical approaches to integrating immersive technologies within the existing information technology found on board UK trains, and new production approaches to speed up the iteration of complex software prototypes

Mobile spatial annotation and its potential use to urban planners and designers

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2007.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 162-168).With the rise of 'Mobile 2.0,' digital telecommunications are beginning to provide deep resources of information to mobile city dwellers. Particularly striking among recent applications is placelogging, defined here as the practice of digitally annotating physical places with user-generated text and media accessible onsite to other mobile users. Placelogging presents potential as a means of engaging citizens with each other and with their environment, as well as distributing authority over defining what Kevin Lynch called "the image of the city." But as an emerging practice, its uniqueness as a mode of communication distinct from other forms of spatial annotation has not yet been proved. To investigate the uniqueness of placelogging, the thesis first establishes a taxonomy of spatial annotation through which to consider the different forms, functions, and trends in official adoption of a wide range of annotating media. Next, annotations made through various media, including placelogging projects [murmur] and Yellow Arrow, are catalogued in two neighborhoods each of Toronto and New York City. A preliminary methodology is defined to analyze and compare trends in distribution, placement and content of annotations.(cont.) Placelogs are found to distinguish themselves by annotating a wide range of public and private places, identified as what Margaret Crawford calls the 'everyday space' of city residents, with predominantly subjective, first-person content, which is described as marking 'everyday time.' Participant interviews and research on related technologies are used to support claims that placelogging could be used to identify sites of shared meaning in the city as well as to foster place attachment, claim to space and social connections among participants. Uses in community development are considered through three cases of implementation: [murmur] in Toronto, Yellow Arrow in Copenhagen and Proboscis' Urban Tapestries in London. Uses for revealed meanings are proposed in preservation, identification of development priorities and sensitivity of response in urban development. Lynch's visual image of the city is revisited as a 'meaning image' that encourages design practices of 'interactive ethnography' and 'sometimes' urban design. Finally, unfamiliarity with and differential access to technology are considered in the context of public uses for placelogging and its derived data.by Rajesh Kottamasu.M.C.P

The Ipperwash Beach Walk (Vers. 3)

The Ipperwash Beach Walk Master of Design 2016 Monica Virtue Digital Futures OCAD University This thesis project uses geo-location to deliver documentary media and interactive visualizations to mobile users during an embodied “beach walk” along a disputed strip of land on Lake Huron. As users travel an historic trail between two Indigenous communities, crossing a series of GPS points along the water’s edge, they will learn via smartphone how settlers colonized Ipperwash Beach. The content is delivered through a mobile platform designed specifically to tell stories. The project is a form of counter-mapping which presents an alternate viewpoint to mainstream notions about how Ipperwash Beach became a vacation destination. Created through the use of co-design methods, the project is intended to benefit the Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point First Nation through a sharing of original archival research, an opportunity to improve relationships with non-Indigenous neighbours, and a value-added experience for the carloads of tourists who visit each summer. Keywords: storytelling, counter-mapping, mobile locative media, documentary, data visualization, embodiment, co-design, Indigenous, colonization, Ipperwas

The hybrid flâneur : an urban experience through the game Pokémon GO

O objetivo geral desta dissertação é problematizar as relações entre as tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TIC) e o lazer no espaço público, mais especificamente, os jogos no espaço público. Observou-se que os jogos de mídia locativa jogados por meio dos smartphones proporcionam um novo movimento dos usuários para os espaços públicos, um movimento que trouxe jogadores de jogos digitais para o espaço público e trouxe também os que costumavam jogar videogames dentro de casa. O tema são as TIC na forma de apropriação do espaço público, na perspectiva dos jogos de realidade aumentada e a forma de relação híbrida que as pessoas estabelecem com o espaço público, pois a mobilidade dos jogos locativos móveis produziu mudanças visíveis no que tange à ocupação e/ou à exploração desses espaços. Como objeto deste trabalho, utilizou-se o jogo Pokémon GO, por ter sido um jogo de grande impacto e repercussão no mundo todo e pela relação da realidade aumentada presente no jogo. Nessa perspectiva, analisar-se-á como os jogos de mídia locativa estabelecem uma relação híbrida entre as pessoas e o espaço público. Buscam-se analisar os diferentes pontos de vista sobre as TIC e como esse jogo teve impacto nas dinâmicas e leituras dos espaços públicos pelos seus usuários. Observam-se também as possibilidades de novas práticas de interação no espaço público, assim como as novas percepções e experiências que um jogo de mídia locativa pode proporcionar. Ao longo do percurso proposto nesta dissertação, estará presente a figura do flâneur, um personagem fictício presente em diferentes livros, tempos e nacionalidades: o flâneur é o divagador dos espaços públicos, aquele que descobre percursos e lugares urbanos através do caminhar na cidade.The general objective of this dissertation is to problematize the relations between Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and leisure in the public space, more specifically, games in the public space. It was noted that locative media games played through smartphones provide a new movement of users to the public spaces, a movement that brought players of digital games into the public space and also brought in those who used to play video games indoors. The theme is the ICT in the form of appropriation of the public space, in the perspective of the games of augmented reality and the form of hybrid relationship that people establish with the public space, since the mobility of the mobile locative games produced visible changes in what concerns the occupation and / or exploitation of such spaces. As the object of this work, the game Pokémon GO was used, because it has been a game of great impact and repercussion in the whole world and by the relation of the augmented reality present in the game. From this perspective we will analyze how locative media games establish a hybrid relationship between people and the public space. It seeks to analyze the different points of view on ICT and how this game had an impact on the dynamics and readings of public spaces by its users. We also observe the possibilities of new practices of interaction in the public space as well as the new perceptions and experiences that a locative media game can provide. Along the course proposed in this dissertation will be present the figure of the flâneur, a fictitious character present in different books, times and nationalities, the flâneur is the rambler of public spaces, the one that discovers paths and urban places through walking in the city

Archaeology of the Voice: Exploring Oral History, Locative Media, Audio Walks, and Sound Art as Sitespecific Displacement Activities

This thesis develops a notion of an archaeology of the voice that is situated between three principal areas of research and practice: oral history, locative media, and sound art. The research takes place in the context of contested urban space in Holbeck, Leeds one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the U.K. Through a reiterative and reflexive process of extensive interviewing, soundwalking and field recording the area is deep mapped and material gathered in order to produce a percipient led sitespecific presentation of oral history I term 'phonoscape'. Although the technology exists to connect oral history to place via locative media within a database aesthetic, a practical and conceptual gap is identified between these technologies for those working with audio interview material. In this context a purpose-built app is developed to enable oral history audio archives to be distributed geospatially, becoming navigable aurally on foot. In order to distribute a polyvocal sampling of an archive in time-space, techniques and principles from contemporary sound art are introduced, in particular a form of field composition involving an understanding of constitutive silence, soundscape, and voice editing techniques. Research into contemporary audio walk and memoryscape practice confirms that non-linear, fragmented narrative forms are used the construction of polyvocal understandings of place, and this is taken forward within a conception of the embodied hypertextual affordance of locative technology. The findings are then brought together in a transdisciplinary manoeuvre that introduces Displacement Activities, a translocational form of site-specific participatory performance art, providing a public vehicle that draws attention to phonoscape, its oral history content, and the archive itself. As an open work that is generative and reflexive, Displacement Activities extend the notion of site-specificity, finding global analogues before returning to the original site to begin the work again

The Shadow Space of Allegorical Machines: Situating Locative Media

This dissertation utilizes a media archaeological approach to the analysis of locative media, which are technologies that organize an experience of spatial orientation. For instance, a user can use a mobile phone to connect to a cellular network and generate a visualization of the material space in which he or she is positioned with annotated or interactive information on the screen. My critical approach to locative media is influenced by a historical constellation of orientation technologies, their contributions to the social imaginations of space, and the resulting experiences and expectations that are negotiated by the material, symbolic, and ideal. Four case studies on the astrolabe, magnetic compass, divining rod, and digital locative media make up a broader historical arrangement of which, I argue, digital locative media are the latest manifestation. Like other media technologies such as radio or television, these spatial technologies offer a window onto another world while also offering (other)spaces of symbolic and cultural codes that are layered over material space. The ability to reveal these otherspaces is associated with the recurring transcendent logic of locative media as individuals are encouraged to unveil the real behind the apparent in order to become united with a hybrid (and enchanted) ecology of the virtual and real. My locative media archaeology involves a theorization of allegorical machines, which is a term I use to analyze the interfaced interpretation of a shadow (imagined or informational) otherspace in relation to a porous correspondence between subject and space. This theorization is an interrogation of how engineers, technological promoters, and users position allegorical machines as making the supersensible sensible through an interface with the sublime. In other words, locative media are technological attempts to make the vague intelligible by bringing what lies outside the realm of physical experience into contact with the senses. Transcending to otherspaces such as the electromagnetic spectrum or the digital network involves an inherent metaphysics of the interface, which as liaisons between bodies and spaces generate animations such as the one that is the focus of this dissertation: the sublime desire or fear of unveiling the unknown space beyond space.Doctor of Philosoph