Mobile Media, Texts and Places

Swanston St Overlaid

Marsha Berry — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 06:39:34 +0000

I have pinned the poems to Swanston St using Google maps. This increases our options with the application because it means that people not actually present in the street can read the poems. I have decided that this is approporate in the spirit of universal access.

The poetry map of Swanston St has 21 sites and three poems at each site. The Poetry4u application promotes future submissions into the competition.

Pinning Poems to Swanston St

Marsha Berry — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 05:11:34 +0000

I have started pinning the winning entries from the Poetry4U competition to Swanston St. At first I thought I would pin the poems with explicit references to specific spots. This seemed to be a straightforward thing but it did not turn out quite that way. Some poems ‘spoke’ to other poems. I wondered if this was anything to do with the Twitter stream that was there when the poets contributed their poems to the stream?

So I thought about this. Can I recreate the sense of a poetry Twitter stream within the interaction of the Poetry4u iPhone app? This is my design and curatorial challenge now.

Poetry4u at Federation Square

Marsha Berry — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:57:31 +0000

I have just returned from a brisk walk to Federation Square where the winning Twitter poems are scrolling on the tickers on the East Shard.

Augmented reality + mobile phones

Marsha Berry — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 01:07:34 +0000

Augmented reality has enormous implications for the ways in which we experience place now that we have the capacity to overlay physical spaces with digital content.The buzz around augmented reality is growing. A recent conference featured Bruce Sterling as a keynote speaker.

What inspires me about the use of mobile phones for augmented reality is that there is no need for specialised equipment such as goggles and sensors. The iPhoneness website shows 26 popular augmented reality iPhone apps.

I am really exited about the potential of mobiles merged with augmented reality for heritage and cultural projects.

Poetry4U – Mockup

Marsha Berry — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 01:07:26 +0000

This is a mockup of how the Poetry4U iPhone application will look.

Augmented Reality

Marsha Berry — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 05:58:18 +0000

I wonder how augmented reality will change the ways in which we read and view visual and verbal texts. Memories, for example, can be easily added to the urban landscape. Previously memories could be inserted into urban spaces through public art projections. Now we have the ability to overlay places with information and images of our own choosing using mobile computing technologies.

A friend came across these applications for mobile phones in London that add extra dimensions to everyday realities. Augmented reality lets us look at the commonplace through new eyes. I especially liked the app that uses archival photographs to create a Street Museum to show what specific sites looked like in the past.

This got me thinking – what if we were to recreate memories of Swanston St in Melbourne through augmented reality? What if we were to use augmented reality to create utopian and dystopian views of spaces? What if we were to introduce use data sets such as crime, water usage and so forth into the mix? How will this affect our relationship to place?

Currently I am driving an augmented reality project to explore some of these questions called Poetry4U. The user experience will be framed and pinned to a geographical place along Swanston St in Melbourne using GPS. Poetry text will float across the camera view and a voice will recite the poem.

thinking about slow media

Marsha Berry — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:30:14 +0000

I am working on an essay called Slow Tweets in a Stream of Disgust. My proposition is that Twitter feeds can create moments of stillness to create the illusion of slowing down time. The very technology that provokes disgust and stress also offers new ways of creating and connecting with artistic expressions.

I found the Slow Media Manifesto to be really fascinating. Benedikt Köhler
Sabria David, Jörg Blumtritt have put together a philosophical position that Slow Media are not so much a contradiction to the speed of social software feeds but rather a state of mind. Our attitude to how we approach them is the main thing. Point 12 of the Manifesto states “Slow Media are progressive not reactionary.” This is similar to my thoughts about Twitter. It is an instant way of communicating and perhaps some posts appear trite. But Twitter also offers new possibilities for reading and writing where there is oscillation between people, between posts and between words.

I seem to have tapped into the zeitgeist with my musings around the poetry and poesis present in Twitter streams. I searched further and found the Longest Poem in the World. Its creators compile the poem from Twitter streams using a carefully scanned rhyming structure.

Welcome

Marsha Berry — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 09:44:08 +0000

Mobile Media, Texts and Places is a blog that explores the possibilities mobile media affords for stories and how we create places for ourselves. It reflects my interests concerning how portable technologies shape our everyday lives. Our ideas about place and time are transforming with each development in mobile media.

Kind regards,

Marsha Berry