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Underground Aesthetics: Rethinking Urban Computing

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Underground Aesthetics: Rethinking Urban Computing URBAN COMPUTING Underground Aesthetics: Rethinking Urban Computing An ethnographic study and a design proposal for a situated music-exchange application suggest how explicitly foregrounding the experiential qualities of urban life can help rethink urban computing design. ecent interest in urban computing tionships between mobility and technology in grows not least out of a longer-term urban contexts. interest in mobile computing and its applications for urban navigation, First-generation applications: discovery, and interaction. This legacy Solving problems Raffects how applications are conceived. At present, We divide first-generation urban and mobile many urban applications focus on solving perceived applications into three categories. problems of disconnection, disruption, and dis- First are systems that frame mobility as a dis- location. However, a growing movement points connection from stable working situations. These toward the value of considering applications try to overcome this disconnection Arianna Bassoli a less instrumental account of either by providing remote mobile access to static London School of Economics city life. Ethnographic studies of information resources or by trying to reproduce existing relationships between static application contexts. For example, the Satchel Johanna Brewer and Paul Dourish urban mobility and technology system sought to give travelers easy access to elec- University of California, Irvine offer an alternate formulation for tronic documents, as well as the ability to share and Karen Martin applications development—one exchange them, by developing mobile digital tokens University College London based on the experiences of ur- that could be used to manipulate documents stored ban dwellers relating to one an- centrally.2 Researchers at the University of Glas- Scott Mainwaring other and to their city. gow investigated forms of “co-visiting” cities in Intel We conducted an ethno- which static and mobile participants interacted graphic study of an existing ur- around the same physical resources.3 In attempt- ban mobility site—namely, Lon- ing to provide “anytime, anywhere” information don’s Underground—to explore a specific aspect of access,4 these applications frame urban mobility as urban life and its relation to technology. This study a problem to be overcome or eliminated. highlighted riders’ diverse, often contradictory, aes- A second category of urban applications frames thetic experiences of the Underground. In parallel mobility as a dislocation problem. These appli- with the study, we designed a music-exchange cations focus on finding your way or locating application, undersound,1 based on explicitly fore- resources. GPS navigation systems are one obvi- grounding these experiential qualities. ous example. So are guides to help people tra- In this article, through reflection on the ethno- verse unfamiliar environments, such as tourist graphic study results and the undersound design, sites,5 museums,6 and university campuses.7 Sim- we explore how an aesthetic account of urban life ilarly, applications that help people find resources might be the basis of designs that support not only as they move through an environment—whether an individual but also a collective experience of interesting restaurants or nearby friends8—also the city. reflect the idea that urban mobility often involves being “out of place” or lost. Mobile technology and urban contexts A third category focuses on disruption—the We begin by examining past and emerging rela- ways in which a mobile technology might behave 1536-1268/07/$25.00 © 2007 IEEE ■ Published by the IEEE Computer Society PERVASIVEcomputing 39 URBAN COMPUTING inappropriately in urban settings. These This second generation of applications examined how riders interacted with context-sensitive applications include, is establishing a body of research that one another and with the space itself, for instance, a mobile telephone setting begins to frame urban mobility as an which sometimes occurred via these itself automatically to vibrate mode in a everyday fact and a new opportunity. technologies. theater or filtering out low-importance These applications present a less instru- Traveling the Underground is a nu- calls at dinner.9 Beyond mobile devices, mental account of urban living by look- anced experience. For example, many context-sensitivity also appears in public ing for inspiration not only in the avail- participants in our study recognized “so- displays that respond to movement pat- able technologies but also in the broader cietal rules” about the proper social dis- terns in public spaces.10 These systems experiences of urban life. tance between strangers, which Janey respond to a sense of rupture between the Levine and her colleagues observed in an technology and the urban setting in which Noninstrumental aspects earlier study of several American sub- it’s deployed. Although social systems of London’s Underground ways.20 For example, civil inattention is might be able to effect a contextually The London Underground represents such a convention, which acknowledges appropriate response, traditional tech- an iconic space of urban mobility. It has another’s presence in an initial show of nologies can’t recognize and respond to shaped, and been shaped by, the city’s respect and then avoids undue, and there- the wide variety of contextual cues that a development. Used by over three mil- fore threatening, attention.21 One partic- city presents. The problem, then, is to lion people every day, the Underground ipant described the conflict between main- make the technology sensitive to them. (which Londoners call “the Tube”) is a taining civil inattention while giving up a primary means of city transportation. seat to a fellow passenger: Emerging applications: Furthermore, it’s a complex system that I find it quite embarrassing to speak Interaction opportunities mediates people’s perception of the city in London. You can’t speak to any- By contrast, an emerging generation of itself, of other inhabitants, and of the body. You don’t speak to anybody, applications is viewing mobility not as a urban experience. The Tube is a single you know. And so, it is quite embar- rassing to say, “Excuse me.” That is problem to overcome but as a way to cre- infrastructure but it supports many ex- the hardest bit, touching them. I usu- ate interactive experiences that rely on or periences, highlighting the heterogene- ally just get up and they go, “Oh, exploit movement and space. For in- ity of urban life.18 Its history is well doc- thank you,” and then they sit down. I find that easier. stance, the UK’s Equator consortium has umented, and it’s been the setting for produced a series of mobile games that many stories in books and films. It’s The complex negotiation of simulta- blend physical and virtual worlds. Among also the subject of several Transport for neously seeming to be unaware of other them, Can You See Me Now,11 a game London studies, including a recent one passengers and yet still participating in played on Sheffield streets, creates a novel regarding the impact of advertisements the unspoken seat exchange is an impor- hybrid space where virtual players inter- (www.thelondoncommuter.com). tant facet of riding the Tube. Various act with players physically in the urban However, there are no contemporary media and technologies—from newspa- space. Another application, Yoshi,12 ethnographic studies describing the pers to music players—can help balance explores the “seams” in digital infra- experience of riding the Tube. Over the this tension. For example, music play- structures—for example, the boundaries summer of 2006, we conducted such a ers—apart from augmenting people’s between telephone cells or Wi-Fi hot- study to enrich our understanding of moods and perceptions of their sur- spots—on an urban scale, making them the experience’s aesthetic components roundings—can also serve as a social visible as interactive elements. Projects that would complement the under- defense. In fact, all technologies can con- such as Sonic City13 or tunA14 explore the sound application design process.19 tribute to the air of civil inattention, ways in which movement through space This study included photographic doc- helping users who want to discourage can create personal or collective audio umentation, written observations, and social interaction with nearby people. In experiences, giving an aural form to semistructured interviews with 19 rid- these situations, “users appear to movement. Finally, several projects use ers. We focused on both the individual achieve, at least subjectively, a sense of GPS movement traces to literally draw and collective Underground experience. public invisibility.”22 Our interviewees images on maps or photographs.15–17 We looked at all the mediating tech- confirmed that they often kept them- These applications provoke new ways of nologies used within the Tube, includ- selves demonstratively engaged with thinking about movement and spatial ing nondigital technologies such as technologies to avoid (or appear to practice in technology-mediated contexts. newspapers, books, and tickets. We also avoid) looking at other people: 40 PERVASIVEcomputing www.computer.org/pervasive Figure 1. In the Tube’s tight quarters at rush hour, passengers occupy themselves with many media forms: mobile phone games, books, and music players. [Without a book, it’s] a bit more bor- ing. I just end up reading the ads or looking around. You are trying not to stare at someone
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