A study was released in the Nature journal today, in which 100,000 cell phone users were tracked without their knowledge. A deal was somehow brokered between a cell phone provider and Northeastern University in Boston.
Story here: Mobile phones demystify commuter rat race
Research article here: Understanding individual human mobility patterns
So on Thursday, I finally made my way to the old Art School that was one of the locations on one of the Scavenger Hunts. I must say that if anyone out there hasn’t been there yet, you must go. It is the best place ever.
There need to be more urban environments like this. But I think the fact that there aren’t–or where they are is socially considered to be ‘off limits’–raises some interesting questions about our society and human domestication. This was touched on in other posts, but I wish to expand on it… What exactly are the reasons why places like this don’t occur more frequently? I suspect that they are primarily accessability and surveillance.
Rampantly overgrown plants obviously make access difficult, which is part of the fun (that first tree really held me back both going in and comming out). For those of us who have additional needs in term of movement–such as canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and enough space to maintain ballance–it would be problematic and somewhat unfair to have to squeeze through overgrown paths and we may even end up excluded. But surely this urban wilderness can coexist with established mobility concerns. For example, once you get past that first tree, the area opens up into a courtyard which is as navigatable as anywhere. I suspect it doesn’t even need a protective tree to create that sense of beauty and mystique. So surely even though this specific site was a challenge, accessability shouldn’t prevent it from occuring.
But perhaps the seclusion factor creates problems for surveillance. One could conceivably do many bad things under the cover of the foliage. This must be why plants do not seem to exist within urban environments, who knows what those birds are doing in their trees. When I was there, there was a bird chirping from some unseen vantage point; I looked but never found it. There was another bird that was sitting in a tree overhead… how weird is that? A bird in a tree? Haven’t seen that happen in a long time. So I figured, if some police officer were to come and try to fish me out of there, surveillance would probably be his reason for doing so. And as we all know, us humans must be constantly watched and always be under the cycloptic eye of surveillance. Always.
Of course, maybe this kind of environment can safely be out in the open. What are the art school’s main distinctions from other urban environments? There are leaves on the ground and walls of plants. There are trees and vines dangling from the roofs. It isn’t merely a blend of humanity and nature, it is humanity as nature. Isn’t it conceiveable that such an environment should be able to be recreated elsewhere? We could put planters on walls, grow vines on the roofs of buildings, and… I guess we have trees, but we could have more plants surrounding them. They wouldn’t be a problem to accessability if they’re all associated with the existing walls of buildings, nor would surveillance be a problem. Just think of the wonderful textures and colors of plants instead of the flat drab walls of buildings.
Here is a project that uses community to find the lines between the upper and lower classes as evidenced by the presence of surveillance cameras. Lower classes feel alienated by the security cameras which seem to exist just to keep them under control. People go out into the city and document the locations of any cameras they encounter. There is also an audio component that tells them when they are approaching a previously marked camera.
It is a sort of way of finding public spaces that aren’t really public because they exclude certain types of people and private spaces that aren’t private because they are being watched. It offers people another way to experience and hopefully gain control of public/private spaces.
It took me a while but I found something: Socialight. The demo video kind of creeped me out. Not only was it backed with a jazzy, muzak, shopping mall soundtrack, but there was no mention (of course) about the surveillance issues surrounding this service. Of course, I have been reading a lot of Naomi Wolf lately, so that could just be the paranoia about closed societies talking.
Anyway, this Socialight service offers location based information generated by consumers for consumers that loads to your cell phone to give you suggestions on where to shop, dine, and be entertained. Think Yelp.com but tagged to locations for you to discover as you move through the environment. The example in the video of looking for the pretzel cart–that happens to be right around the corner–raised many questions for me personally: Would they have ever tried this pretzel cart if they hadn’t been notified? Will this help fill out entertainment venues? Is this service likely to aid impulsive purchases? Will this drive people further out of reality and into the lcd screens of their mobile devices? This service/project looks like the beginning of corporate/capitalist adaptation of the locative media format. Would anyone use this service, or is it too Patriot Act creepy?
How much information is our cell phone sending about us? I am writing about this procject because it has many possibilities both from business or artistic standpoints. Our phones can send data about where we are, what we are next to and who we are next to. This project illuminated that all of these devices are able to monitor our personal data; and that, “With all technologies that are susceptible to pervasive surveillance techniques, the only way to opt-out of the surveillance is to switch off altogether…”
Loca tries to let the person being tracked know of its awareness. That it is aware of you, and that you should be aware of loca. Loca uses bluetooth technology because it isn’t an entirely secure protocol, yet.
