Molly Hankwitz Thesis
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Personal Media and Wireless Cities: Towards An Urban Spatial Analysis Molly Hankwitz B.A. Honours in Philosophy, Barnard College of Columbia University Coursework towards Masters, Yale School of Architecture, Yale University Media and Communications Creative Industries Faculty Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia January 2011 Supervisors: Dr. Terry Flew, QUT Dr. Stephen Wilson, San Francisco State University, San Francisco. CA (1947 - 2011) KEYWORDS Mobile communications, mobile media, wireless, urban space, spatialities, gendered use, urban planning, social space, cell phone, mobile phone, architecture, wireless cities i ABSTRACT For the past decade, at least, varieties of small, hand held networked instruments have appeared on the global scene, selling in record numbers, and being utilized by all manner of persons from the old to the young; children, women, men, the wealthy and the poor and in all countries. Their presences bespeak a radical shift in telecommunications infrastructure and the future of communications. They are particularly visible in urban areas where mobile transmission network infrastructure (3G, 4G, cellular and Wi-Fi) is more established and substantial, options more plentiful, and density of populations more dramatic. These end user products—I phones, cell phones, Blackberries, DSi, DS, IPads, Zooms, and others – of the mobile communications industry are the latest, hottest globalized commodities. At the same time, wirelessness, or the state of being wireless, and therefore capable of taking along one’s networks, communicating from unlikely spaces, and navigating with GPS, is a complex social, political and economic communications phenomenon of early 21st century life. This thesis examines the specter of being wireless in cities. It lends the entire idea an experimentally envisioned, historical and planned context wherein personalization of media tools is seen both as a design development of corporate, artistic, and military imagination, as well as a profound social phenomenon enabling new forms of sharing, belonging, and urban community. In doing that it asserts the parameters of a new mobile space which, aside from clear benefits to humankind by way of mobility, has reinscribed numerous categories including gender. Moreover, it posits the recognition of other, more nuanced theoretical spaces for complex readings of gender and gendered use, including some instantiation of the notion of ‘network’ itself as a cyborgian and gendered social form. Additionally, cities are studied as places where technology is not only quickly popularized, but is connected to larger political interests, such as the reading of data, tracking of information, and the new security culture. In so doing the work has been undertaken as an urban spatial analysis and experimental ethnography, utilizing architectural, feminist, techno-utopian, industrial and theoretical literatures as discursive underpinnings from whence ii understandings and interpretations of mobile space, the mobile office, networked mobility, and personal media have come, linking the space of cities to specific, pioneering urban public art projects in which voice, texting and MMS have been utilized in expressions of ubiquitous networks and urban history. Through numerous examples of techno art, the thesis discusses the ‘wireless city’ as an emerging cultural, socially constructed economic and spatial entity, both conceived and formed through historic processes of urbanization. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………….1 Contextualizing the Research………………………………………………….1 Historical Context for the Thesis Argument…………………..……………….3 Comments on Australian and American Text and the English Language …….4 Questions Guiding the Research……………………………………………….7 Synopsis of Key Argument…………………………………………………….8 Equity and Economics…………………………………………………………10 Wireless State of Mind…………………………………………………………13 Overview of Chapter Content…………………………………………..………15 CHAPTER 1: Co-present Social Differentiations in Wireless Communications Introduction……………………………………………………………..………19 Defining Personal Space…………….…………………………………..………19 New Social and Spatial Intensities …………………….………………..………21 Landlines and Wireless Devices: Radical Differences ……………….………32 More Cultural Differentiation(s) ……..………………………………..….……34 Navigation and Social Media………………..…………………………..………38 Locative media: Public Urban Projects ………………………………………..40 More on Locative Media and Architecture ……………………………………...44 Conclusions …………………………………………..………………………...45 CHAPTER 2: Gendered Use, Mobile Women, and Wireless Media Introduction ……………………………………………………………..………48 Defining Gender, Technology and Contrasting Approaches ……………………49 Gendered use: Global Perspective ……………..………………………..………50 User-based Research: Advantages for Gender Studies ……………………….…56 Travel and Female Subjects …………….………………………………..………61 Case Study: Women Artists in Mobile Careers …………………………………..69 Conclusions ………………………..……………………………………..………78 CHAPTER 3: Wireless cities and Pervasive Networks Introduction………………………………………………………………..………81 Micro Infrastructure and the Internet of Things……………………………………88 Automation and Surveillance…………………………..…………………..………91 Wireless Spatial Experience…………………………..…………………..……..…97 Discussion of Enclosure and its Loss…………………………………………...…101 Sustaining the Public Commons…………………………………………………..106 Co-presence and Belonging…………………………………..……………………109 City-wide and Community-based Wi-Fi projects……………………………….…113 Public Access History………………………………………………………………119 Conclusions ………………………………………………………………………122 iv CHAPTER 4: Mobilizing Urban Space Introduction to the Two Part Study …………………………………….124 Part One: Theoretical Perspectives on Networked Cities……………….125 Part Two: Typologies of Network Form and Density…………………...142 Group One………………………………………………..……………...140 Group Two…………………………………………………..…………...146 Postscript…………………………………………………………………147 Conclusions………………………………………………………………150 CHAPTER 5: Technological Diffusion as Urban History Introduction Corporate Design and Experimental Architecture…………………………..153 The Space of Flows: From Static to Mobile……………………..…………..162 Post sedentary Space and Loosened Data………………….…..………….....164 Personalization: Computing, Telecommunications and Markets…………….170 Home Computing …………………………………………………………....176 Wellman’s Network Relations Sociology………………………………..…..178 Households as a Unit of Analysis…………………………………………….184 Public Computing: Gender bias, Technological Cooperation, and Online Diversity..187 Free and Recycled Computers………………………………………………...190 Conclusions……………………………………………………….…………...192 CHAPTER 6: Mobile Media in Recent Activism Introduction: Comments on Globalization…………..………………………..195 Indymedia and the Anti-Globalization Movement…………..………………..195 Rituals of Protest: Questions of Participation………………………………....197 Inexpensive Recording: Video as Mobility and Cell phone “Pictures” ……….202 Wireless Street Art…………………………………..…………….…………...204 Civic Engagement: Flows and the Social Space of Crowds……………………206 Wireless Art: Four Case Studies…………………………..……….…………...210 DIY Cyborg: Steve Mann as Activist…………………………..……….……...216 Conclusions…………………………..…………………………….…………...219 CHAPTER 7: Personal, Social, and Transnational Urban Identities Introduction: The Complexity of Newness…………………………..…..…….222 Research Approaches…………………………..……….……...........................226 Wireless Identity………………………………………………….…….……...230 Urban Techno Art and Location…………………………..……….…...............234 Dividuals, Cyborgs, and Mobile Subjects……………………..……….…….....235 Non technological Bodies and Variability……………………..……….…….....240 Perspectives on Identity: Hegemony, Transnationalism……………………......243 The Global Commons…………………………………..……..……….…….....247 Conclusions……………………..……….…………………………………......249 v INDEX OF SUMMARY TABLES S.1 Social and Spatial Shifts S.2 Characteristics of Personalization(s) Relevant to Mobile Use S.3 Characteristics of ‘Personal Space’ in the Mobile Context S.4 Wellman’s Observations on Benefits of Personal Computing and Networks in Households S.5 Advantages of Mobile Use in Activism vi Statement of Original Authorship The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made _____________________________________________ Molly Hankwitz, December 2010, San Francisco CA vii Author’s acknowledgements The candidate expresses her deep appreciation and gratitude to the following two people: Dr. Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communication, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology and the late Dr. Stephen Wilson, San Francisco State University, Conceptual Information Art, my Supervisors, for their boundless encouragement, guidance, knowledge, love of learning, and support. To David Cox, my partner, for his inspiration, love of electronic media, care and time; to Simon, my son, who has allowed me to work, and to the Faculty and Staff at QUT, Media and Communications, Research Students’ Center, and the Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation. Additional acknowledgements go to my Examiners, to the interviewees, my mother, family and friends who lent their encouragement. viii INTRODUCTION The third wave, just beginning, has many computers serving each person everywhere in the world. I call this last wave "ubiquitous computing" or ‘ubicomp’.