connected limerick: exploring urban spaces through digital traces

Connected Limerick: exploring urban spaces through

digital traces

Gabriela AvramInteraction Design Centre,

University of Limerick, Irelandgabriela.avram@ul.ie

Outline

Background Methodology The digital overlay The interventions Discussion Conclusion and future plans

Introduction

Focus: mobile actors (locals and visitors) whose movement and interaction with urban spaces are augmented with an “additional digital overlay” (Ciolfi, Fitzpatrick, Bannon, 2008)

Introduction (continued) Goffman-inspired presentation of place –

as relationship between the nature and the appearance of a place (Sutko& da Souza, 2011)

for each user, “the urban environment is constructed through perceptions of nearby information and people”( Gordon and De Souza e Silva, 2011

Problems with navigating the city The lack of ubiquitous availability of a wi fi

or mobile connection; The large number of location-based social

networks and their reliability problems; Affordances of smartphone apps – touch

typing while walking; screen not readable in bright light.

Research questions What motivates people to create and

share digital content in relation to specific places within a city?

How is this content consumed on the move, using location-aware mobile devices?

What does the digital dimension add to the appearance of a place?

Can the digital overlay cause a shift in the general perception of a place?

Methodology mobile methods recommended by Büscher

et al (2010): ‘moving along with’ members of the public

likely to be touched by technology, ‘moving in’ with prototype technologies, and ‘being moved’ by experiences, observations

and conversations that arise along the way.

Work to date Involvement in local interest groups and

communities, supporting their digital presence;

Organising and running urban games; Working with students to create content;

Limerick’s digital overlay

A citizen turned historian

Flickr Group gathering the best photos

Twitter

Foursquare

Initiative and YouTube channel founded by a native who returned from NY

Sonic Soundscapes

Geocaching

OpenPlaques.org

Communities coming together because of Facebook

Boards.ie

The official image

The interventions

Reflecting upon the role of the digital layer

“Connected Limerick”- 2010 Started as an initiative

meant to encourage reflection on the relationship between the city and its “digital double”

We invited individuals, organizations and communities to reflect on how this content is influencing their trajectories through the city and how can it be made more visible and more accessible to both

locals and visitors.

“Connected Limerick”- 2011 Series of short talks on

the interweaving of the digital and physical layers, followed by discussions

Emphasis on embodied, situated interaction

The risks of studying the digital separated from the physical (Bannon 2011)

The interventions

Contributing to the waving of the digital

layer

Supporting the digital presence of local communities

miLKlabs ( Limerick hackerspace)

Limerick Local Heroes

IxDA Limerick chapter

We love Plassey riverbank

3Dcamp

Digital news curation

Tweasure Hunt Urban game using Twitter and Flickr as

part of the Lifelong Learning Festival in April

Eliciting stories from people who know the city really well and recording them; erecting temporary plaques;

Documenting existing plaques for enriching the Open Plaques repository;

Discussion Participating in community content

creation: insights into new collaborative practices;

The waving of the digital layer can be supported in various ways: semantic annotations; following the UT model of content co-creation

& organic growth (Angus et al 2008); digital curation;

New digital tools for urban activism: “deciphering, debugging, and hacking the city”(Doerk&Monteyne,2011)

Conclusion and future plans

Citizens and visitors are not equally affected by the digital overlay- digital divide;

Many of the groups active in producing digital content ignore their audiences;

Interventions need to build on existing, low-tech (or no tech) practices;

Future plans: Studying the impact of the digital overlay consumption on changing both life in the city and the perception of the city.

References Ciolfi, L., Fitzpatrick, G. and Bannon, L., (2008),

“Settings for Collaboration: The Role of Place”, Computer Supported Cooperative Work Journal, Springer, Vol. 17, Nos. 2-3, April/June 2008 (91-96).

Sutko, D. M., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2011). Location aware mobile media and urban sociability. New Media & Society, 13 (5), 807-823.

Gordon, E., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2011), Net Locality: Why Location Matters in a Networked World. Boston: Blackwell-Wiley.

Angus, A. et al.(2008), Urban Social Tapestries, IEEE Pervasive Computing 7 (4) 44-51.

Dörk, M., Monteyne, D.(2011),Urban Co-Creation: Envisioning New Digital Tools for Activism and Experimentation in the City. HCI, Politics, and the City (CHI 2011 workshop).

Thank you!

gabriela.avram@ul.ie @gabig58 ConnectedLimerick.wordpress.com Coniecto.org