The Meaning of Place: technological imagination and human experience
New technologies are reconfiguring our relationship to the places we inhabit. With the near ubiquitous presence of cell phones in many cities, the rise of wireless networks, hybrid games, the use of geographical information systems, and the emergence of an embedded computing research agenda in many labs, physical location has re-emerged as an important construct in the imagination of and creation of new technologies.
But humans think of place quite differently than our technologies might demand. We inhabit places, not physical coordinates or zones of reception. Places are imbued with meaning through cultural practice; places are bounded and denoted in ways that may or may not match physical or technological means. This forum is intended to understand how the human construction of place both affects and is affected by new technologies.
Meaning of Place Forum and Seminar, Held September 9 -10, 2003, Hillsboro, OR
* Anthony Townsend was not able to attend the conference in person
Workshop Sessions
1. Places and risk
From safe houses to no-man’s lands, from mine fields to fun zones, various sorts risk and reward are assessed in connection with the properties of places. What is the relationship between the perception of personal risk and the physical environment and how does technology affect this relationship? How can technology-enhanced places fail, and how can design head these off? How does technology impact balance between the public and private? This workshop attempts to understand this relationship among place, technology and the human calculus of risk.
2. Place and meaning
“The land is always stalking people,” said one Apache elder to anthropologist Keith Basso, “The land makes people live right.” Through stories and place names people have long fashioned a relationship to their physical environment that surpasses just navigation through space. By what means does this relationship building continue, and what impacts are new technologies having on the process?
3. Maps
In The Power of Maps, Denis Wood writes “Maps work by serving interests.” Many researchers and practitioners recognize that new technologies may be able to broaden the interests served - and thus the power - of maps. What possibilities for new forms of mapping - collaborative, participatory, or other - are enabled by new technologies? What new types of representations of physical place are possible, and what new techniques? Finally, where are the limits of mapping, are there ways of understanding place that defy mapping altogether?
Facilitators: Nina Wakeford, Eduardo Brondizio, Genevieve Bell
4. Expression / Artistry
Technologies and places interact in remarkable ways when explored from the perspective of artistic expression. Hybrid games, according to many practitioners, are a new form of literary expression. Meanwhile, art installations by many of the participants in this very forum challenge our notions about presence and representation of the immediate environment. What new forms of artistic or literary expression might be enabled by new technologies? What examples suggest new directions?
5. Places and Social Networks
Social network analysts seek to describe networks of relations among social actors. While such abstractions may seem to have little relation to physical place, the relationship is important and in flux. With the rise of virtual communities, place has been seen as decentered in the formation of networks. Increasingly, however, interest in the design and strengthening of communities, the rise of hybrid spaces, and other trends may yet affect the relationship between physical places and social networks.
6. Entertainment and Play
What new forms of entertainment and play are enabled by new technologies, and how are these disrupting the ways we think about our physical environment. This workshop, drawing on insights from the 030303 event at Berkeley, will further examine the role of play in undermining social conventions, challenging boundaries, and otherwise affecting our understanding of place through the use of technology.
7. Building communities
With the rise of community informatics to a new stress on Putnam’s notion of “social capital,” more and more researchers and practitioners are turning their interest to how new technologies might enable the creation of new forms of civic engagement, new means of community-based development or community defense. This workshop examines trends in the creation and enrichment of life in place, and examines the potential for new technologies in this regard.
8. Building places
Colsely related to the issue of building communities is the question of the design of the physical world we inhabit. How will the deployment of new technologies affect our understanding of the design of places, from buildings to urban landscapes? Will “smart places” bring about an intersection of architectural design and UI design? How will existing approaches to both architectural and information design (e.g., Christopher Alexander’s Pattern Language) be affected by the rise of pervasive technologies?
