[ISEA2008] Monika Ewa Codourey – Territory as Interface; Designing Media-Enhanced Interactive Spaces for Local-Network Connectivity in Transportation Nodes

Abstract

 
On theoretical and practical level, this research is related to the remarkable growth in the application of information and communication technologies in transportation nodes (airports, railway stations and automated ports). This growth indicates a shift toward a globally integrated and constantly mobile networked society with characteristics and dynamics that are material as well as immaterial. Emergent forms of informational mobility are influencing patterns of movement, co-presence, social segregation, exclusion, profiling and security in an urban context. The research explores the correlations between socio-spatial transformations and new forms of mobility, as well as study the mergence of real and virtual worlds using example of Airport Hubs. The main question of the research is: How can new architecturally situated interaction design shift these spaces into socially responsive environments?

The research reviews relevant historical and theoretical literature on mobility and surveillance inside transportation networks and analyze the connotations of micro-technology which can police and process information tracking. The applied purpose and consequence of `new surveillance` for mobility on physical and informational control is related to borderlands, border crossing and border identities. Transportation hubs have become reorganized, recombined and pre-mediated by ubiquitous technologies and the author compares artistic interpretations and architectural subversive applications of wireless technologies to explore combinations of surveillance and security with assistance.

The practical part of the research investigates how these changing forms of physical and informational mobility contribute to production and transformation of urban techno-space at the Airport. The author presents the results of artistic project “[Constant Traveler] – Reality Game” pursued in collaboration with psychologists. The project instigates behavioural and cognitive patterns of business travellers interacting with handheld devices in multi-modal transportation systems. The data of their movement through space (generated in real-time) reveal interactional mobility paradigms for design of geolocated multiuser game-like prototype.

 

Monika Ewa Codourey Biography

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