fisharepeopletoo

Academic Enquiry*

i/ We want to understand what might be effective tools and techniques
for creating satisfying location aware play/narratives** [and assuming our version of it to be
technologically enabled in some way]

ii/ From the run of Five Trees Forest events (in two office buildings and a sixth form college), start to isolate [in a repeatable and demonstrable way] what those tools and techniques might be.

iii/ Measure how effectively Five Trees Forest deploys those tools and
techniques.

iv/ use that measurement to inform new location aware play.

My guess as to what the effective tools and techniques might be (not
all deployed in Five Trees Forest), is some combination of:

location sensing technology (which technologies might be better or
worse? - is NFC better than GPS, is an SMS keyword better than NFC?)
shared public space
narrative
game play
rules
individual creativity and self expression
communal activity
real world identity/anonymity
presence
peer pressure
face-to-face interactions
web sites
printed paper
mobile phones
archives and databases
screens
sense of place
sense of belonging

which is the sort of list that includes just about everything, ever.

*We've been enquiring into this since 2002 if not before, but not academically.
** My half-arsed (though based on a great deal of practical experience) observations on "What is location aware play?" coming shortly. Whether it's a meaningful or valuable thing to try and create, I might skip for the time being.

HCI 2008 Workshop: Evaluating Player Experiences in Location Aware Games

I'm reviewing papers for a workshop at the UK Human Computer Interaction conference, Evaluating Player Experiences in Location Aware Games. More details on the IPcity website here

The conference is in Liverpool, and has the theme of Culture, Creativity, Interaction, (the website is here), chosen to tie in with the Capital of Culture I guess, and interestingly the theme of the Liverpool Biennial is Made Up, which is about "art’s capacity to transport us, to suspend disbelief and generate alternative realities".

That's sort of the aim of technologically supported mixed realities when used as storytelling or entertainment mediums?

Word to the Wise

This is the green Thumbprint: thumbprintcity.com

It won't be green much longer, so if you can say "I remember Thumbprint when it was still green", then who knows, you might be able to dine out on it in years to come.

Thumbprint London starts on the Day of Monsters, Friday 13th of June, and it won't be green by then, so click quick, while you've still got chance.

I Have Seen the Future of the Mobile Web

And it's still the text message.

Amazon have started doing shopping by SMS:

"Amazon TextBuyIt, which launched late Tuesday, lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that’s “Amazon” on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work — including from inside physical stores."

I don't think we've seen the half of this kind of stuff yet.

People know how to send text messages, and no one is scared of doing it.

So as soon as you start to think of text messages as peer-to-database, or peer-to-database-to-peer, as well as peer-to-peer, a whole other world opens up.

The only reason things like text shopping won't happen is if people love their mobiles and the intimacy of SMS so much they shy away from using texting as a functional tool.

A Nest of Nokia NFC Phones

A nest of Nokia NFC phones to use in Five Trees Forest.

As everyone knows, sprites like to live in mobile phones when they are hiding from the witches because the warm batteries are cosy, and the radio waves make them giggle.

Valentine's Day Text Message Love Poems

If you've forgotten to buy a Valentine's card, or want to follow it up with even more luurve, there is a selection of text message sized love poems here (click "thumb love").

SPARKLERS
I write your name:
in traces in the dark;
on flat, wet sand;
in breath on windowpanes.

Coming to a Nokia 6131 Near Field Communication (NFC) Mobile Phone Near You Very Soon

Signs and Wonders?

One of the ways Blyk are trying to make money is sending text messages to people from Lethal Bizzle and The Streets. I've not seen the messages, but it would be daft not to write them in the first person. (Remember Static?)

Day of the Figurines. A town you walk around in in your head, pretending to be someone else, sending texts to people in the same town who aren't them.

Children on a school trip to Lewes castle, texting people from the past, delighted by their answers. And not caring how people who didn't have mobile phones could send texts. (How can light projected against a wall make us cry?)

Incorporeal

and corporeal.

I usually try and make myself stay away from Latin words, because when writing in English they are much less poetic than ones that come from old english and the vikings, but maybe that's a good one.

Because it's got corpse in it. As in dead body.

I've just used incorporeal when writing about wireless networks and data -- so what I've written would mean "things that don't have a body which will die."

It sticks out a bit, to be honest, as a choice of word, when "intangible" would probably do the job, and words that stick out are usually the ones you should get rid of, but it sounds richly strange, in the context, and it makes me think of alchemists, plagues and  Descarte fighting with the "evil genius" .

He says "a range of wires" --- 15th Anniversary of the First Text Message

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first text message, Lisa asked everyone she knew to send her their last text of the day on the 3rd.

The results reminded me why I love text messages and mobile phones, and how I got started on all this marlarkey in the first place.

We all carry around a little device for artistic production - written and photographic - and for sharing that production, not just by sending it but by showing other people, hand to hand, the photos and messages we've got stored on our phones.

More times in the day, in more places, more people are making and sharing things of their own than for a very long time, and, in their own modest ways, taking the measure of the world as artists.

That must be a valuable thing for us all, individually at least - lets not risk any big claims for us collectively - and it's why I say a little prayer every now and again that mobile broadcast TV continues to die on its arse for a bit longer.

It would be a shame if all these tiny chances for creativity were swamped before we've made the most of them.

Here are some unexpected almost-poems from the 3rd, and god bless ya Mr Papworth:

"May i suggest you have cake for breakfast too"

"In the reli if you fancy it matron?"

"Bring cheese, we`re having chilli"

"Wow, funny how circumstances can give u an unexpected adventure! I realised that..."

"He says "a range of wires" "

And the rest are here.