In the dark – designing navigation for a haptic theatre experience

We describe the ongoing work of a collaborative theatre project, in which blind and sighted members of an interdisciplinary team are working on the creation of an immersive and accessible theatre experience. The theatre experience is set in pitch dark, and uses audio and haptic ubiquitous technologies to guide both blind and sighted members of the audience. During two sessions which explored the use of enactive navigation in the dark space, participants were able to locate areas of interest within the dark, using enactive explorative navigation, and some participants described this as a ‘dense’ experience

Supporting the Mobile In-situ Authoring of Locative Media in Rural Places: Design and Expert Evaluation of the SMAT app

Providing users with carefully authored Locative media experiences (which can be consumed via their GPS equipped smartphones or tablets) has significant potential for fostering a strong engagement with their current surroundings. However, the availability of mobile tools to support the authoring of locative media experiences in-situ, and by non-technical users, remains scarce. In this article we present the design and field-trial expert evaluation of a mobile app developed under the SHARC project (Investigating Technology Support for the Shared Curation of Local History in a Rural Community). The app is named SMAT (SHARC Mobile Authoring Tool) and supports the authoring of Locative Media experiences with a focus on the creation of POIs (Points of Interest) and associated geo-fences which trigger the pushed delivery of media items such as photos, audio clips, etc. One important requirement of SMAT is the ability to support authoring in places where connectivity is intermittent or unavailable, e.g. many rural areas

Supporting the design and consumption of Locative Media Experiences related to the Cultural Heritage of a Rural Village Community

In this paper, we provide an overview of the SHARC research project. Our approach, based on technology probes, is to design, develop and evaluate (over a longitudinal period) a system that supports the design and consumption of locative media experiences that relate to the cultural heritage of a rural village community named Wray. Our design needs to cater for the different backgrounds and cultural diversity reflected in the range of envisioned users of the system which includes both residents and visitors to the village

The urban screen as a socialising platform: exploring the role of place within the urban space

In this paper we explore shared encounters mediated by technologies in the urban space. We investigate aspects that influence the interactions between people and people and people and their surroundings when technology is introduced in the urban space. We highlight the importance of space and the role of place in providing temporal and spatial mechanisms facilitating different types of social interactions and shared encounters. An emperical experiment was condeucted with a prototype that was implemented in the form of a digital screen, embeded in the physical surrounding in selected locations with low, medium and high pedestrian flows in the heritage City of Bath, UK. The aim is to create a novel urban experience that triggers shared encounters among friends, observers or strangers. Using the body as an interaface, the screen acted as a non-traditional interface and a facilitator between people and people and people and their surrounding environment. Here we outline early findings from deploying the digital screen as a socialiasing platform in a city context. We describe the user experience and demonstrate how people move, congregate and socialize around the digital surface. We illustrate the impact of the spatial and syntactical properties on the type of shared interactions in and highlight related issues. The initial findings indicated that introducing a digital platform as a public interactive installation in the urban space may provide a stage for emergent social interactions among various people and motivate users to actively and collaboratively play with the media. However, situating the digital platform in various locations, and depending on the context, might generate diverse and unpredicted social behaviours designers might be unaware of. In this respect we believe that the final experience is shaped by interconnection of structural, social, cultural, temporal and perhaps personal elements. We conclude by mentioning briefly our on going work

Evaluation of yasmine’s adventures: exploring the socio-cultural potential of location aware multimedia stories

This paper describes Yasmine’s Adventures, a location aware multi‐ media story designed as a location based service for a museum. Yasmine’s Adventures follows a young local girl (Yasmine) through a series of short animated adventures, tailored specifically to engage visitors in exploring the rela‐ tively neglected streets of the area in which the museum is situated. Yasmine’s perceptions of the landmarks, identified by community members themselves, reflect the real concerns of the community. Results from the evaluation of the user’s experience suggest location connection and perception changes when loca‐ tive media narratives include learning, understanding and discovery elements.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Twinning social memory and social imaginary : challenges for east African media policies

The article discusses the significance of the past in the planning of media policies in two neighbouring countries in Africa, namely Kenya and Tanzania. The theoretical frame is composed of four concepts: social imaginary, collective memory, domestication, and liminality. The scrutiny starts from the last years of colonialism and ends with the presentday situation with online media. In both countries, the basic media approach is still distinctly top-down and focuses on authorities—either the state or market elites. Kenya appears as a representative of continuity, while the media history of Tanzania is filled with jerky turns. However, the Tanzanian mediascape comes closer to the ordinary person, thanks to the use of Kiswahili and colloquial vocabulary, while the press in Kenya remains very elite oriented. The far more advanced Kenyan information and communications technology (ICT) situation does not change the situation much, because at the citizen level, the emphasis in ICT development is on services, not citizens’ voices. The shadow of the state is strong.Peer reviewe

Supporting the consumption and co-authoring of locative media experiences for a rural village community: design and field trial evaluation of the SHARC2.0 framework

Locative Media Experiences (LMEs) have significant potential in enabling visitors to engage with the places that they visit through an appreciation of local history. For example, a visitor to Berlin that is exploring remnants of the Berlin Wall may be encouraged to appreciate (or in part experience) the falling of the Berlin wall by consuming multimedia directly related to her current location such as listening to audio recordings of the assembled crowds on 10th November 1989. However, despite the growing popularity of enabling technologies (such as GPS-equipped smart phones and tablets), the availability of tools that support the authoring of LMEs is limited. In addition, mobile apps that support the consumption of LMEs typically adopt an approach that precludes users from being able to respond with their own multimedia contributions. In this article we describe the design and evaluation of the SHARC2.0 framework that has been developed as part of our long-term and participatory engagement with the rural village of Wray in the north of England. Wray has very limited cellular data coverage which has placed a requirement on the framework and associated tools to operate without reliance on network connectivity. A field study is presented which featured a LME relating to Wray’s local history and which contained multimedia content contributed by members of the community including historic photos (taken from an existing ‘Digital Noticeboard’ system), audio-clips (from a local historian and village residents) and video (contributed during a design workshop). The novelty of our approach relates to the ability of multiple authors to contribute to a LME in-situ, and the utilisation of personal cloud storage for storing the contents associated with a multi-authored LME

Mapping, sensing and visualising the digital co-presence in the public arena

This paper reports on work carried out within the Cityware project using mobile technologies to map, visualise and project the digital co-presence in the city. This paper focuses on two pilot studies exploring the Bluetooth landscape in the city of Bath. Here we apply adapted and ‘digitally augmented’ methods for spatial observation and analysis based on established methods used extensively in the space syntax approach to urban design. We map the physical and digital flows at a macro level and observe static space use at the micro level. In addition we look at social and mobile behaviour from an individual’s point of view. We apply a method based on intervention through ‘Sensing and projecting’ Bluetooth names and digital identity in the public arena. We present early findings in terms of patterns of Bluetooth flow and presence, and outline initial observations about how people’s reaction towards the projection of their Bluetooth names practices in public. In particular we note the importance of constructing socially meaningful relations between people mediated by these technologies. We discuss initial results and outline issues raised in detail before finally describing ongoing work

Tales of Text and Culture: Tropes of Imperialism, Women\u27s Roles, Technologies of Representation, and Collaborative Meaning-making in Rita Golden Gelman\u27s Tales of a Female Nomad, Female Nomad and Friends, and Personal Website

This dissertation examines contemporary travel writing specifically created for a popular reading culture, Rita Golden Gelman\u27s Tales of a Female Nomad, Female Nomad and Friends, and personal website. The project is concerned with how culture is continuously represented and shaped through the dialogic interaction between writer and reader, and the subsequent liminal spaces which emerge in moments of meaning-making. Chapter 1 is a close reading of how Gelman\u27s works reinforce and, in some cases, resist, tropes of imperialism. Chapter 2 examines patriarchal gender roles in Gelman\u27s works and the ways in which recent advances in feminist psychiatry and psychology can radically change our understanding of women\u27s identity formation based on an updated collaborative identity model. Chapter 3 explores the active nature of meaning-making between text, reader, and popular culture utilizing the theoretical framework of reader-response criticism for a reception history of Gelman\u27s texts. In my analysis of the relationship between Gelman as author and her popular readership via print text and web reception, I seek to provide historical context as well as a situated, specific, and tangible exploration of meaning-making for artifacts of popular culture

BETWIXT AND BETWEEN: Virtuality, Liminality, Media and Memory

Using the concept of liminality found in the work of anthropologist Victor Turner, this thesis explores connections among experiences of media, memory, and the virtual. I examine how these phenomena influence and inform everyday life, and especially how they play out in experiences of displacement, exile and migration. I analyze them as forms of contemporary ritual which play a key role in the construction of our identities in a globalized world. The thesis discusses displacement and its relationship to the concept of “home”, paying particular attention to media representations of home and mediated experiences of home. I look to the work of Salman Rushdie, Edward Said and Homi Bhabha in understanding the experience of being in-between and “beyond” cultures. Margaret Morse’s layered understanding of the virtual and Richard Cavell and Aijun Appadurai’s accounts of new forms of global mediation are addressed. This theoretical material then informs a discussion of the work of artists Mona Hatoum and Pippiloti Ris