Reading 24

Fiona Raby “Project #26765: Flirt”

http://a.parsons.edu/~srance/fall05/major_studio1/readings/flirt.pdf

This article

Reading 33

Matt Locke “Being here – some moving stories about mobile technology” (Receiver Issue 05)

http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/05/articles/inner03a.html

In this article Matt Locke addresses the changing notion of location and how mobile technologies affect our idea of space. While our present state of always connectedness makes place less significant there is still an importance placed on location and how it relates to our “signal strength” or connection to the omnipresent “network”. Locke also gives two examples of mobile projects; one which attempts to change the user’s location by adding a fictional hazard to their physical location as seen by the network, the other rewards users for maintaining a constant daily routine with consequences for deviation.

I find the idea of eddies and shadows of information and signal and how they relate to physical architecture very interesting. This unseen data stream, influenced like the flow of water or air, creates a new topography defined by the information which keeps us connected and lifts the physical barriers of location. It sounds like a great mapping project to visualize the information as it travels around us.

Reading 34

Mizuko Ito “Mobiles and the appropriation of space,” (Receiver Issue 08)

http://www.receiver.vodafone.com/08/articles/index07.html

In this essay Mizuko Ito examines the way in which the mobile phone has changed the methods of communication between Japanese youth in co-presence, or “flesh meet” / “meet space” interactions. She and her researchers examine how the events prior to, during, and following a physical meeting are affected by the new modes of communication offered by the cell phone. The main differences that she identifies are how physical meetings are made more fluid and are subject to less rigid times and locations of meeting, enable for extended social interactions by including friends that are separated by space, and allow for more immediate access to information pertinent to the meeting and quicker post-meeting follow up. It is this immediacy and casualness that are facilitated by the use of the cell phone as a mobile communication device, always keeping the user up to date and constantly adjusting to new circumstances.

While her essay focuses on the habits of Japanese youth, I think that many of the same conclusions and methods of communication are true of many younger generation cell phone users. One of the most interesting things for me is that in this always-on/connected youth culture there seems to be a desire to eradicate any sort of downtime and instead fill it with short messages or seemingly frivolous communication. I also believe that the internet and its constantly updating and responding to changing information has largely shaped this sort of communication while MTV and videogames have furthered this short attention span wielding user that craves constant entertainment or other mediated engagement. Personally I like to turn my phone off every once and awhile and become unreachable.