This morning I have been reading the first issue of a new newspaper entitled ‘As It Is To-Day. Issue 1. London Special’ put together by Chris Heathcote and printed by Newspaper Club. It is a fine collection of old text and advertisements that concern city life in London a long time ago. These texts where first published between 1790 and 1925 and includes a guide to walking in London streets from 1790, a thorough introduction to railway travel from 1839, reports from 1890 opening of the largest electric-lighting supply-station in the world and many more. Heathcote’s carefully selected collection of text give glimpse of a rich history of city-guide literature and opinionated text about travel, leisure, news and experiencing the city. ‘As It Is To-Day’ might well be read in the context of contemporary city use and urban culture and be seen as an interesting supplement to research and theories about encountering the city. The richness of the descriptions of urban experience and the colorful advice from the old city guides could serve a interesting startingpoint for discussing current mainstream location based services (that often seem to limit their ambitions to bland utilities and pointing you towards the ‘nearest-pizza‘.)

‘As It Is To-Day’ also reminds me of research and art events such as this year’s ‘Urban Encounters: Routes and Transitions‘ symposium at Tate Britain about “how photographic practices and archives intersect with an understanding of local and global routes as “places”, considering the temporality of place and the cross-cultural juxtaposition of locales”. The texts presented in ‘As It Is To-Day’ also relates to routes, transitions and the temporality of place, but give a very different feel and experience than what can be achieved by en art gallery. There is obviously a great potential in the bench- and stroll-friendliness of the printed newspaper and I really wish I could read some of these texts in the places they describe. However I’m reading this newpaper at my suburban kitchen table by a cold Norwegian fjord and are limited to a form of kitchenchair travel through time and space. So, many thanks to Chris for a urban tardis for food, walking, fishing suits and railway travel (and I look forward to the next one).

1. For the last year I have been teaching interactiondesign at AHO and worked for the design/research project Touch. This is brilliant and I will be working for Touch until September.

2. Last year I also got my PhD proposal accepted at AHO. I will start working fulltime on this project in Semptember. The PhD’s workingtitle is ‘Inhabiting Urban Computing’. I will write much more about this in the near future.

This diploma project is an expedition into urban computing, an emerging multi-disciplinary research field that focuses on computing and digital networks in urban contexts and on the cultural and social impact this has on the city. The ‘Adventures in Urban Computing’ is a study of how mobile technology devices can be used as instruments for participatory urban studies. It develops and tests experimental devices that raise urban awareness over time and can facilitate informed discussion.

The project is situated between urbanism and interaction design and works specifically with designing mobile technology devices with the purpose of provoking and gathering opinions about everyday life in cities and towns.

Framework
The first half of the project is a theoretical approach to the field where urban computing is placed, traced and discussed within a framework of current writings on ubiquitous computing, urban studies, technology and design. The framework is made up of critical perspectives from the contemporary urban computing discourse and including among others Anne Galloway, Paul Dourish, Genevieve Bell, Adam Greenfield and Stephen Graham. The central conclusions are these:

• Urban computing research may fruitfully be grounded in the daily practices of the present and not lead by architectural and technological fantasies of the metropolis of tomorrow.

• Urban computing research requires a fundamental cross disciplinary focus. A broader understanding of urban computing includes alternative perspectives and values to the discourse and to the design process.

• The understanding of urban computing and its implications must move beyond real vs virtual conceptual binaries. In daily life digital technology and “real” spaces can not be seen as separate domains.

• Urban computing belongs in the broader context of digital technology in everyday life. It should be understood in relation to both domestic practices and general network culture.

• Urban computing research should take the messiness of everyday life as its central theme. Computing and digital networks will never become the seamless and orderly utopia envisioned in traditional ubicomp research.

These conclusions set a scope within urban computing research that is narrower than the general ‘ubicomp of the city’ interpretation of the field. ‘Adventures in Urban Computing’ is not about everything from security, city maintenance, interactive architecture to sensor networks and spectacular near-future technologies. It is about designing interactions for exploring city usage within the daily practices of today and re-imagining the already mundane network devices of everyday life.

Interruptors
The second part of the diploma is a set of practical explorations that take these reflections as its starting point. These explorations investigates how mobile devices can be used to gather and provoke opinions about the city and how this can raise the awareness of daily urban environments. They focuses on how digital networks and information technologies can be used in collaborative city studies and in strategies/concepts for citizen participation.

The outcome of these studies is the Interruptor experiments. The Interruptors are urban computing prototypes that focuses on the behaviour of mobile devices in relation to the personal urban experience. The Interruptors are a result of experimental device design and fieldwork. The Interruptors are based on an analysis of the behavioral characteristics of the mobile phone. This analysis concludes that the interruptive character of the mobile phone may be an ideal initiator for observation on daily life and the city. This is not a feature of the technological platform, but of the usage of the phone. The interruption is a way for the phone to weave into the daily life.

The Interruptors is a series of devices that interrupts you and asks you to make observations. The Interruptors are networked, location-aware and are meant to be used for long periods of time in order to probe your responses everyday environments. The devices gather observations and opinions and encourage city exploration. The Interrruptor studies conclude in workshops and promotes informed discussions about urban environments. The Interruptors where developed thorough extensive fieldwork and tests and are illustrated though hypothetical case studies of collaborative city analysis and neighbourhood initiatives.

The diploma report can be downloaded here.

More pictures can be found here.

Yesterday I delivered the diploma. I will do a writeup when I have regenerated my mana. Thanks to all how have been helping me.

I´ve just been out taking scenario-photos of the final Interruptor (camera) prototype. The battery-life is bad and its so shiny that its difficult to take pictures of. Apart from this its an ok experience prototype. Its main function in the diploma is as concept illustration.

I´m in the final phase of my diploma and had the last “mycity” drawing/mapping workshop today. We mapped out nodes, routes, zones, gems, shadows, dragons and rainbows… And located the photos and notes from the interruptive notebooks. Thanks to Una, Ingeborg and Jørn.

With a little help from Jørn I managed to finish the first three working probes before I left for DUX. It´s three interruptive notebooks. You turn it on when you go outdoors, put it in your pocket and it will interrupt you at random intervals. When the notebooks calls for your attention (by vibrating) you have to answere one on the questions (tasks) in the book. The books have different themes (People, Rythm and Sense) and the questions have to be answered within these contexts.  As a concept-test Una, Ingeborg and Jørn will be using the probes while I´m away and we will run a workshop as soon as I get back.

This is an preliminary prototype of a device that interrupts you while you move through the city. Its the first of a series of devices designed to studie “everyday life as urban infrastructure”. More on this later.

Friday 14.09.07 I was one of the speakers at the first day of the Urban Interface conference in Oslo . It was a quite interesting event and a good opportunity to present my diploma-thoughts to a diverse audience. I presented my views on urban computing and urban gaming, and gave a slight preview of my diploma. I got interesting feedback, and I think the event can help me focus my concept/project. It was also a great exercise in communicating my research-work and discussing it outside the school-context.

I´ve uploaded my presentation and notes here: “Urban Computing and the Temple of Doom”

And I´ve been asked to gather a link-list from the talk:

• “Urban Atmospheres” at Intel Berkley : http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/
• “Jabberwocky” : http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/Jabberwocky/index.htm
• “Imity” : http://www.imity.com/
• “Urban Probes” : http://www.urban-atmospheres.net/UrbanProbes/index.htm
• “PacManhatten” : http://pacmanhattan.com/
• “ConQwest” : http://www.playareacode.com/work/conqwest/
• “GTA IV” : http://www.rockstargames.com/IV/
• “San Francisco Zombie Mob” : http://eatbrains.com/
• “StreetWars” : http://www.streetwars.net/
• “Institute of PanGalactic Studies” : http://pangalacticstudies.com/
  

  
  

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