Term Paper Abstract - Zach Rocchino

Zach Rocchino
Survey of New Media
December 1, 2009

Locative Media as a Facilitator for Human Connection

Technology is all around us. It pervades every possible corner of human life from birth to death and spans all genres and cultures. The more we develop newer, better, faster machines, the more they become similar to the humans who created them. Many technologies are simple extensions of human abilities and are modeled closely after them. Communication technology has become huge in recent years with the standard consumer having at least one cell phone if not more communication devices. The Global Positioning System (GPS) has also been a huge step forward in determining exact geographic place on the face of the planet. Although these technologies make some things drastically easier (such as sending a message across the world or connecting two people who could never physically meet), they have also made it much harder for humans to connect with one another in emotional ways. Everything is facilitated by technology and this could have a drastic effect on the social skills of humans when interacting in real space. In my study, I aim to describe the ways in which Locative Media, a form of new media that tries to discern the linkage between people and technology and makes them think critically about the spaces they are moving through and the design of those spaces, can actually be a way of bringing people close together. Not in a physical sense, but in the emotionally connected sense. Drawing on readings from class and specific case studies of these plans put into action, it is my goal to prove that the blurring of lines between humans and other humans as well as humans and their environment can not only be facilitated by technology, but strengthened by it.



Resources:

Psychogeography and the derive: http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/a.evans/psychogeog.html

Algorithmic Psychogeography: http://socialfiction.org/psychogeography/algoeng.htm

Murmur: http://murmurtoronto.ca/about.php

Urban Tapestries: http://urbantapestries.net/

Blast Theory: http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/index.php

The Game of Being Mobile: http://con.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/13/4/369?rss=1

Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino - http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/citysum.htm

http://www.ludic-society.net/tagged/

http://www.landlines.org/

http://pacmanhattan.com/

http://www.appliedautonomy.com/isee.html

http://www.appliedautonomy.com/txtmob.html

http://www.kurator.org/wiki/main/read/Hack+Commissions