Manovich
Speaking of augmented space, I really like this free NYSubway app, which overlays stop locations on users’ phone’s “view.” Shows virtual signs hanging in the frame’s air, based on your GPS to the closest subways in every direction.
Paulos and Jenkins
Urban probes as artifacts introduced into the urban environment, usually as a prototype. The Jetsam project stalked trashcans to determine what types of trash were being discarded. The personal stories that can be uncovered from these types of projects (also Lost Postcards) is great material. I loved that a magazine is seen as litter ‘probably left by a young person.’ What do you do with a magazine when you finish it on the subway? Do you throw it away or leave it for the next bored commuter? Our debris has a narrative, and sometimes a different perceived narrative, and additionally a second-chapter if it is fished out of the trash for reuse.
Lanier
Never really knew the concept behind “open culture†Web2.0, how we’ve become anonymous comments rather than real people. Moore’s law: the power of computers will grow exponentially. Decisions on the micro level then explode on the macro. Musicians must communicate via MIDI though the concepts are much deeper, like humans are broken down into definable bits. UNIX doesn’t respond to human rhythms and timing, just key strokes. Google searches people as bits. “Digital network architectures naturally incubate monopolies.†Why you can’t create a competitor to Craigslist and eBay. The rise of templated blogs and Facebook, commercial aggregation, obscures the true sources = people.
Weiser
This is like Haithem’s project putting interfaces and ubiquitous computer screens on every little artifact. I could see that, but also the super device, the centralized iPhone that operates all systems. With all the personalization of these machines and devices, it’s kind of the opposite thesis of Lanier, where the individual disappears into the technology, here the user is seen as augmented through personalization.