Thoughts on 'geo' tagging
Technologies such as GPS, WIFI, RFID and Bluetooth running on a whole range of handheld wireless devices are enabling new contextual action and communication, or to put it more literally they are 'sensing place'.
The critical feature of these new practices is that they are binding a whole range of communication technologies back into a spatial and physically located setting. Recent projects (such as Plazes, Yellow Arrow etc.) have made possible, through the virtual tagging of locational information, the sharing of serendipitous discovery of meaning in often everyday locations. Formerly concealed or unexpectedly everyday sites of interest in a location are revealed or highlighted. Through the availability of this type of information directly in the setting the individual becomes transformed from outsider or stranger, to an insider who is no longer remote. In turn they then participate in a cycle, where they themselves layer the given place with their own experience, which is by its very nature grounded in a wholly different perspective of personal experience and memory.
The individuals 'sense of place', which although initiated at an individual level, perpetuates through the opportunity offered through the technology to instantly share and network the experience with an unknown number of familiar strangers. In actively participating in the exchange of information the individual is encouraged to recognise and acknowledge a highly personal and more immediate experience of place, one not based in its mass identity or preconceptions, and consequently there is the likelihood that this experience will endure. Placemaking, rather than being understood at a superficial or casual level of mass identification is instead redefined at often unexpected scales and in extraordinary locations.
The critical feature of these new practices is that they are binding a whole range of communication technologies back into a spatial and physically located setting. Recent projects (such as Plazes, Yellow Arrow etc.) have made possible, through the virtual tagging of locational information, the sharing of serendipitous discovery of meaning in often everyday locations. Formerly concealed or unexpectedly everyday sites of interest in a location are revealed or highlighted. Through the availability of this type of information directly in the setting the individual becomes transformed from outsider or stranger, to an insider who is no longer remote. In turn they then participate in a cycle, where they themselves layer the given place with their own experience, which is by its very nature grounded in a wholly different perspective of personal experience and memory.
The individuals 'sense of place', which although initiated at an individual level, perpetuates through the opportunity offered through the technology to instantly share and network the experience with an unknown number of familiar strangers. In actively participating in the exchange of information the individual is encouraged to recognise and acknowledge a highly personal and more immediate experience of place, one not based in its mass identity or preconceptions, and consequently there is the likelihood that this experience will endure. Placemaking, rather than being understood at a superficial or casual level of mass identification is instead redefined at often unexpected scales and in extraordinary locations.
posted by katharine s. willis at 3:55 pm
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