Panel Statement
The paper describes two recent locative walks constructed in Athens using the Empedia Software suite developed for iphone and Android smartphones. The projects were large scale collaborative workshops involving a broad range of disciplines to tease out the nature of politics in relation to city space in Athens. One workshop: Codes of Disobedience and Disfunctionality used graffiti as a trigger for public interaction and the deconstructing of the political codes behind public manifestations of resistence to the neo-liberal financial crisis and its supposed remedies. The second walk Urban Digital Narratives addressed the issue of displacement in the newly gentrified Gazi area of the city and created a varied portrait of an inner city area under great pressure from a changing economy and the presence of a variet y of ethnic communities. The authoer will ask how effective can locative media be both a representing these issues and laying them before an interested proactive audience.
Martin Rieser‘s art practice in internet art and interactive narrative installations has been seen around the world including Milia in Cannes; Paris; The ICA London and in Germany, Montreal, Nagoya in Japan and Melbourne, Australia. He as delivered papers on interactive narrative and exhibited at many major conferences in the field including ISEA: Montreal 1995, Rotterdam 1996, Chicago 1997, Nagoya 2002, Belfast 2009, University of Oslo 2004, Siggraph, 2005, Refresh Banff Arts Centre 2005, Digital Matchmakers Trondheim 2005 Plan ICA 2005, NAI Rotterdam 2008, Intelligent Environments Seattle 2008,Barcelona 2009, Locunet University of Athens 2008, ISEA 2009 and at many other conference venues across the UK and Europe. His interactive installations include Understanding Echo shown in Japan 2002, Hosts Bath Abbey 2006 and Secret Door Invideo Milan 2006, The Street RMIT Gallery Melbourne 2008. He is currently developing mobile artworks for Vienna (The Third Woman), and public installations for the new DMC in Leicester (Secret Garden) . He has published numerous essays and books on digital art including New Screen Media: Cinema/ Art/Narrative (BFI/ZKM, 2002), which combines a DVD of current research and practice in this area together with critical essays. And has recently edited The Mobile Audience, a book on locative technology and art due out this year from Rodopi, also logged in a blog. He has also acted as consultant to bodies such as Cardiff Bay Arts Trust and the Photographer’s Gallery London, Arkive in Bristol, The Soros Media Institute in Prague and UIAH in Helsinki.