twitter :: journeys in real-time

Twitter is fast becoming the social networking site and real-time commentary of what people are doing. Twitter is used not only to connect to others for business purposes, for similar interests or to follow a certain social topics - but also to comment on what is happening in their neighbourhoods, cities and the traffic -- right at this moment!

The best example for real-time "tweeting" or "tweets" is from New York city providing its citizens with a twitter page to chart the transport system. 511NY.

People can sign up for traffic and transit twitter updates:


People can also follow tube lines and follow progress for specific regions.

I blog this because the use of - social networking technologies - can be an effective and inclusive way to engage with people of all ages to participate in a project. It gives people a space to voice their own opinions and to make comments as well as to link the project into other interests they may have.

Sound Garden + Networked Public Spaces

The Tactical Sound Garden [TSG] toolkit is an open source software platform for cultivating public "sound gardens" in the city. It can be used to create social public spaces for people to participate in an digital environment to build a technologically mediated garden.

Working with mobile audio devices like the iPod, the toolkit enables anyone with access to wireless (WiFi) "hot zones" to install a "sound garden" for public use. Using a WiFi enabled mobile device (PDA, laptop, mobile phone), participants "plant" sounds within a positional audio environment.

These plantings are mapped onto the coordinates of a physical location by a 3D audio engine common to gaming environments - overlaying a publicly created soundscape onto a specific urban space. Wearing headphones connected to a WiFi enabled device, participants drift though virtual sound gardens as they move throughout the city.

Bike Sharing Solutions :: Cyclocity

How can Lancashire raise the bar to provide 4th generation bike sharing facilities in the future?

1) The first generation of bike sharing began in 1967 in Amsterdam!! Normal bikes without locks simply painted white where provided for public use - as you can imagine, things did not go as planned as some people abused the system.

2) In the late 1990's, the second generation of bike sharing was launched in Copenhagen, Denmark. These bikes were specially designed to be picked up and returned at specific locations (racks) with a coin deposit (like super market trolley).

3) The third generation of sharing bikes uses electronic locking racks, or bike locks, chip cards, mobile phones and internet. These new systems 'know' who uses the bikes and people can be tracked. In 2007 Paris started Velib, ran by advertisement company JCDecaux. The success of Velib generated enormous interest in bike sharing around the world...

There are a variety of bike sharing options and a lot of case studies to learn from all the existing systems to choose the best model to work in Lancashire! Here are a few different systems:

• Clear Channel: Barcelona, Washington DC, ....They provide a turn-key program in 13 European cities and recently started its first American program, the one in Washington.
• JC Decaux: Paris, Lyon, ...
• Call a Bike: Berlin, ...
• Next Bike: Germany
• OV-fiets (Public Transport Bike): Netherlands

Call a Bike

Call a Bike is a bike hire system run by Deutsche Bahn in several German cities, which uses a system of authentication codes to automatically lock and unlock bikes.


To hire
Customer calls the telephone number given on the bike which includes the bike's ID and gets by voice the 4 digit opening code, which he then types onto the bike's touch screen to unlock it

To return
Lock the bike to a fixed object, and select "return bike" from the bike's touchscreen. A code will be generated which then has to be telephoned to the control centre, as proof that the bike was locked. As well one has to give the exact street names of the cross roads, which has to be within the permitted town area.

The Technology involved
Comprised of an electronic wheel lock and a cable lock, all controlled by embedded microcontroller with touchscreen LCD display. A set lock/unlock codes are unique to each bike and stored in memory.

re:blogged from Wikipedia

Active Audiences // Engaged Public

Creative potential of mobile devices are a significant emerging media platform that can be used for innovative projects across cultural actives. Tools such as navigational technologies such as GPS, messaging services via SMS and digital image exchange via MMS - provide an interactive network between artists, audiences and the world around them. Mobile and wireless communication devices - in the hand of the public - allow their involvement in the creative process and to actively shape their own art experience.

Mobile communication devices can be used for projects that involve:
- Episodic narratives; text messaging
- Cross-platform production; image, sound and video up-loads
- Digital audio spaces; using GPS or RFID tags
- Mapping virtual and physical spaces; location aware technologies, Smartcodes

Mapping Fylde Coast, Morecambe and Lancashire

To help in the design of a new cycling path or public path - one which is interactive and responsive to the way people use and navigate their journey - a new trail would need a form of WAYFINDING nodes to help guide riders along as well as to pin-point where along the journey the path becomes interactive....

New mapping applications (digital) and identification markers (physical) may need to be considered to help people use and navigate the environment with GPS devices such as the mobile phone.

The Mobile City

The Mobile City is about Mobile Media // Urban Culture // Locality
Mobile media has become an interface between virtual spaces and the city! Merging the digital world with the physical world, people can upload and share real world experiences back to the digital world with other people.

The Mobile City project describes the use of location aware technologies and mobile devices to understand how those technologies can transform our experiences of urban culture.

• working with interfaces referencing space/map/places; for instance Google Earth-mash ups or TomTom devices.
  
  
• creating interactive, responsive geographic places for teh design of maps, to build on local meaning and chart new territories.
  
  
• trace objects and people on the move using locative media and to coordinate realspace social networking.
  
  
• using of locative media as a ‘space making devices’, altering the experience of a certain space through mobile phones SMS for example.

Ludus Dance : Text Messaging and Choreography

During the f.city Festival in Lancaster 2006, the public were invited to take part in Ludus Dance activities receiving dance instruction and directions via text messaging and video podcasts! Via online video, people were able to learn simple dance steps and receive tuition and instructions before dancing live in the city.

Ludus Dance based in Lancaster and is Britain's leading dance in education company. They produce issue-based dance theatre performances that tour to schools and theatres across the UK and internationally.

online video people could view before the big performance

Mobile Sound :: Sonic City

Sonic City is a project that presents the city as a musical instrument. The project imagines the city in terms of a sound and music space, giving the people in those urban spaces the ability to create sound and experience musical compositions. The city becomes an interactive musical interface.


Sonic City enabled people to create music by walking through a city. By using wearable mobile computer technology - the perception of place, time and the activity applied to exploration the urban sapces turns into personal audio creation.

"We explore the use of public space and everyday behaviours for creative purposes, in particular the city as an interface and mobility as an interaction model for electronic music making."

The city becomes an interactive and physical interface. The architecture and urban surrounding provide a built infrastructure to use creatively. The everyday activity of walking or cycling through the urban space can be translated into movement and choreography and captured by the city interface. Through the use of mobile and wireless tools this movement can be translated into narrative and creative feedback.

Sonic City was created by Ramia Mazé, Play Studio, Lars Erik Holmquist, Future Applications Lab and Lalya Gaye, Future Applications Lab, Viktoria Institute.

Mobile Sound: Walking and Listen

AURA, is project by artist Steve Symons, which allows people leave a digital audio trail as they move and walk through their physical surrounding.


People take a backpack and headphones on a walk and in a defined radius the walker experiences sounds at specific areas anchored by GPS points.

Sound to drive a narrative journey

Artist are using mobile and wireless technologies to overlay digital information onto real spaces.
Audio sounds can be embedded at a certain location and information triggered to which it refers.

Imagine walking or cycling along the water front and as you pass certain digital makers, you will be able to hear sounds, music or a narrative...

Landlines: Mobile GPS drawing tool

Landlines software was developed by artists Jen Hamilton & Jen Southern in conjunction with ONTECA Ltd to gather live GPS data. The unique tools becomes an interactive vehicles for people to learn and talk about the nature of a place, and its meaning to local people. These projects can be seen at portable TV.

>> your journey outlined on google maps <<

Landlines is a multi-user drawing tool for mobile phone and bluetooth GPS, that allows users to draw by moving in real space. As you walk through the city with Landlines your latitude and longitude is periodically sent via mobile phone to a database. A website then displays your live tracks.

Mobile exploration of location & place - NW

The artwork of Jen Hamilton, Jen Southern & St Amand investigate social and tactile approaches to technology and work with audiences to explore location and sense of place. Their projects explore how new technologies influence the way we inhabit an environment and collaborate with industry on the development of new tools for creating collaborative maps.

Distance Made Good: Flow Lines (2004), Hamilton and Southern worked with local people to make a new map of Lancaster and Morecambe, UK, by using the Landlines system based on the lives of the people living and working there, and of the places.

The walkers (a group of local residence) were invited to make journeys that in some way represent who they are in conjunction with being a landmark for the city they live in (e.g. A participant in Morecambe took us for a walk along the seafront, as for him the seafront represented Morecambe, and it was a route he regularly took when walking his dog).

Thirty four walks were recorded using a GPS device, and were represented together in the gallery on two map like screens folded into the space.

In their project: Running Stitch (2006) the artists gave exhibition visitors a GPS-enabled mobile phone to track their journeys through the city centre. These walks created GPS line drawings of the walker's movements projected live in the gallery to disclose hidden aspects of the city. Each line drawing was sewn in real time into a large 5m x5m hanging fabric to show an evolving tapestry that revealed a sense of place and interconnection between the walkers and the city. (re:blogged from their respective websites)

The Burgess Project - Manchester

The Burgess Project was an exciting project produced by the-phone-book Limited, exploring new technologies, new modes of writing and engagement with new audiences. It was launched during the innovative freeplay strand of the inaugural Manchester Literature Festival, in October 2006, where Literature, Technology & Media came together.

Through the use of Bluetooth and mobile phone media, the public were able to par-take in the Burgess narrative whilst taken on a grant tour, a promenade performance through Manchester that linked several venues across various city centre venues. A full story line and project description can be found online with a link to a video screening.