must “MEDIA” mean REMOTENESS ? The urbanism of electronic communications has seldom been encouraging. For whether the word “media” implies passive entertainments, global networking, production software, or the attention economy of all of these, it does tend to imply disembodiment; and that implies trouble for space and place as we know them. But what happens when media become embodied in access, spatial in operations, and place-based in content? In particular, what happens when information technology moves out beyond the desktop into the sites and situations of everyday urban life? What does it mean that content is something you do, not something you are given, and where do you go to do that?

must “MEDIA” mean REMOTENESS ? The urbanism of electronic communications has seldom been encouraging. For whether the word “media” implies passive entertainments, global networking, production software, or the attention economy of all of these, it does tend to imply disembodiment; and that implies trouble for space and place as we know them. But what happens when media become embodied in access, spatial in operations, and place-based in content? In particular, what happens when information technology moves out beyond the desktop into the sites and situations of everyday urban life? What does it mean that content is something you do, not something you are given, and where do you go to do that?

OBIE best of show 2007 Source: The OBIE awards

Timeline: place-based media

A recently popular image in the flyposting debates Source unknown

Literary society (ca. 1885) Henry Collins Brown

Physical components of pervasive computing

Five trends in urban computing

Components of ambient information

Information foraging on the derive

Cached communication

Four kinds of writing

Epigraphic reading in Persia Source: Geoffrey Nunnberg

Sao Paulo to ban billboards Source: www.worldchanging.com

Timeline: pollution

Press kit feature on airports Source: OAAA

Press kit feature on airports Source: OAAA

Removing soot, Penn Station Pittsburgh, (ca. 1948) Source: The Carnegie photo database

QUESTION # 2 “ How much information is pollution, that something can be done about?&quot; (6) 0% --> LITTLE all information welcome pollution just in the eyes of the beholder (4) <--100% MUCH toxic data smog! Audience text-in poll The Interactive City, ISEA07

QUESTION # 1 “ Which activity bonds urban spaces together most effectively?&quot; (6) SOCIETY: conviviality “third place” public assembly social navigation presentation of self (4) COMMERCE: (especially shopping) Audience text-in poll The Interactive City, ISEA07

Ambient media planning

Dimensions of urban markup

Toward a new Epigraphy

Water Bottle Label Source: The Henry Ford (Museums)