Location, location, location: Collecting space and place in mobile

Article

Location, location,location: Collecting spaceand place in mobile media

Alison GazzardUniversity of Bedfordshire, UK

AbstractFinding our way between places, through spaces, has been documented using various techniques ofmapping. Maps are often thought of as products that allow us to find our way between places.However, they have various other uses and meanings, existing as both scientific and culturalartefacts. Mobile phone technologies have evolved, allowing for the integration of global posi-tioning systems (GPS). The inclusion of GPS in ‘smart phones’ such as the iPhone now allows usersto view the spaces they are moving through in new ways. This article examines how we are nowremapping places through mobile technologies, which poses the question of how our relationshipwith local spaces may be changing. It focuses on Foursquare, the Layar AR browser and the iPhonegame Argh as examples of how our sense of place and mapping are evolving through user-generatedinput.

Keywordsaugmented reality, game, location, map, place, space

Introduction

The technologically mediated world does not stand apart from the physical world within which it is

embedded; rather, it provides a new set of ways for that physical world to be understood and appro-

priated. (Dourish, 2006: 304)

The map allows us to see collections of integrated places, but it is also an artefact associated with

ways of showing the culture, politics and society of the creator at the time of its construction. This

is a phenomenon that continues today and is made possible by increasingly ubiquitous mobile

technologies. The now customary integration of mobile phones with GPS (global positioning

Corresponding author:

Alison Gazzard, Research Institute for Media, Art and Design, University of Bedfordshire, Park Square, Luton, Bedfordshire

LU1 3JU, UK

Email: [email protected]

Convergence: The InternationalJournal of Research intoNew Media Technologies17(4) 405–417ª The Author(s) 2011Reprints and permission:sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.navDOI: 10.1177/1354856511414344con.sagepub.com

at UNIV FED DO ESPIRITO SANTO on April 26, 2015con.sagepub.comDownloaded from

http://con.sagepub.com/

systems) has allowed this technology to be used in a series of applications with the aim of

remapping the world around us. ‘Smart phones’ such as Apple’s iPhone and various incarnations

of the Android operating system in phones such as the Nexus One, have built-in Google Map appli-

cations. It is now possible to have an idea of where we are at the press of the button. In carrying the

phone we, as users, are carrying a vast database of information about the area around us (subject to

data connectivity), and we are now able to continue to add to these databases.

Maps have not always been used as navigation devices. The elaborate Klencke Atlas of the

1600s was illustrated with pictures of places surrounding the detailed map area and stands roughly

2 m high (Barber and Harper, 2010: 92). The atlas was designed with illustrations depicting cities,

towns and ports alongside the detailed two-dimensional top-down plans of various places in

Europe. This was not a portable navigation device, but a sign of wealth conveying how maps have

also been concerned with politics, propaganda and power. As John Pickles states:

[m]apping is an interpretative act, not a purely technical one, in which the product – the map – conveys

not merely the facts but also and always the author’s intention, and all the acknowledged and unac-

knowledged conditions and values any author (and his/her profession, time and culture) bring to a

work. (Pickles, 2004: 43).

The same can be true of location-based mobile devices that allow users to make their own mark on

online maps, add their own time, history and culture to places and offer a snapshot of the places

they decide to illustrate during their journeys. Through digital GPS remapping users may no longer

be concerned with routes between places but marking individual places within unknown spaces.

Geo-location makes it possible for us to tag photos, videos, and ‘tweets’. Users can add images

to Google Maps placing the co-ordinates of the location where the photograph was taken. Users

can tag tweets to show where they were when using the micro-blogging service Twitter. Each time

they are adding to our understanding of the world around us, allowing the recipient to gain an

insight into the culture, politics and society at these moments in time. In the 1500s, lavish, gold

lined maps such as Diogo Homen’s ‘Chart of Mediterranean and western coasts of Europe’ (Barber

and Harper, 2010: 34) were displayed on the walls as signs of the owner’s wealth and knowledge,

and were created to be viewed over time. Now this form of technological user-generated (re)map-

ping can be both ephemeral and long-lasting. Geotagged photographs can remain online for years

with places updated by multiple users, whereas individual, geo-located tweets are usually updated

more frequently, being replaced as the user updates their micro-blogging life. Eric Gordon (2009:

22) discusses this as ‘network locality – the experience of interacting with located data within the

perceived infinity of global access’. Gordon highlights how although we feel as though we interact

with a global network of data, many interactions frequently occur within local spaces. It is these

local spaces that are of relevance to this article. The forthcoming discussion will focus on those

places in close proximity to the user in terms of local GPS data and the way the user/player moves

through and tries to collect these local spaces and places through various mapped representations.

Scholars have made a distinction between space and place. Michel de Certeau (1984: 117)

defines space as ‘practiced place’. For de Certeau, space is the areas we walk, defined by the routes

we take between places. In contrast to this, places are the predefined buildings and signs we see

whilst on the walk through this space. Paul Dourish takes these ideas further stating

[w]here ‘space’ describes geometrical arrangements that might structure, constrain, and enable certain

forms of movement and interaction, ‘place’ denotes the ways in which settings acquire recognizable

and persistence social meaning in the course of interaction. (Dourish, 2006: 299)

406 Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 17(4)



This is a statement linked to human geographer Yi Fu Tuan’s view of space and place as ‘when

space feels thoroughly familiar to us, it has become place’ (Tuan, 1977: 73). Rather than places

being fixed, they are areas we come to know and visualize. Tuan (1977: 71) discusses places in

relation to ‘landmarks’ which can be seen as the frequented places that people start to recognize

and familiarize themselves with whilst building upon their spatial knowledge of a new area. It is

these landmarks that become places in unknown space. The definition of space as an area to move

through compared to place that is familiar and signed will be used throughout this discussion. It is

through these distinctions of space and place that this article will discuss various mobile location-

based media to understand how we may be remapping spaces as well as changing our perspectives

of the places in between. The location-based application Foursquare (Crowley and Selvadurai,

2009) will be discussed in relation to user-generated maps and the collection of places, leading

to a discussion of augmented reality games and experiences used through mobile technologies.

These experiences allow for the real world to become transformed into the game world map and

prompts the idea of collecting spaces in relation to places.

Stalking the streets

In discussing Sheller and Urry’s (2006) writings about travel, Adriana de Souza e Silva and Larissa

Hjorth state that during most movement between places:

[the s]pace traveled was often ignored ... urban spaces were mostly used as circulation spaces, where

one keeps constantly moving around, with the goal to arrive at specific locations, but often, the space in

between lacked meaning. (de Souza e Silva and Hjorth, 2009: 609)

This is true of Foursquare. Foursquare is a location-based application created by Dennis Crowley

and Naveen Selvadurai. Its website claims that: ‘Foursquare on your phone gives you & your

friends new ways of exploring your city. Earn points & unlock badges for discovering new things’

(Crowley and Selvadurai, 2009). Users of the application have to create a profile online much like

other social networking sites, and then have access to a GPS enabled phone to use the service. It is

then possible to log in to your profile, check in to places around you and earn badges based on how

many different types of places you have managed to log on your account.

Foursquare is based around locating places, and the focus is not necessarily about travelling

between those places. The premise of the location-based application (app) is to discover new

places whilst on your travels yet the experience of using the app is somewhat different. Although

places may be sought through walking the city streets, using Foursquare demands your attention.

The act of opening up the application forces you to stand still and wait for the GPS to update your

current location. Places around you are listed and you can choose where to check in. Therefore, it is

possible to check in to multiple locations whilst remaining in one position. In fact, it is often easier

to remember to check in to places when a place is reached, rather than standing still in a place and

trying to find a location to log whilst walking around. The process of finding your position is not

always instant, therefore the application often requires you to stand or sit still to find out where you

are. This makes the act of finding places deliberate rather than a process occurring through an act

of discovery. However, it is often not possible to check in to more than three locations simultane-

ously, as the application displays a message telling the user to slow down and wait before their next

check-in. So although it is possible to check in to a few locations within the surrounding area of

one place, the user has to wait or move to a new location to gain more check-ins on their profile.

The aim is to gather a collection of places rather than the movement through space, yet it is only

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through this movement that new places can be archived and added to the user’s profile. This raises

the question of how we collect these places whilst moving through different spaces.

Hjorth and de Souza e Silva discuss Benjamin’s concept of the flaneur in relation to mobile

games stating that: ‘[h]e provided another type of lens through which to read and participate in the

city, exploring new angles and avenues in the shifting vignette of early postindustrial urbanity’

(de Souza e Silva and Hjorth, 2009: 606). There is often a discussion of exploration and wandering

when mentioning the flaneur. However, there has also often been a debate as to whether the flaneur

is still a viable figure in discussing walking through the streets of our seemingly post-modern

world. Instead Iain Sinclair’s idea of the ‘stalker’ has sometimes been used as a metaphor for the

way we now move through spaces. In writing of following the Kray funeral procession in 1995,

Sinclair noted ‘[t]he concept of ‘‘strolling’’, aimless urban wandering, the flaneur, had been super-

seded. We had moved into the age of the stalker, journeys made with intent ... This was walking

with a thesis’ (Sinclair, 1997: 75).

The idea of the stalker, the walker with a purpose, can be seen in the light of using Foursquare.

The user of Foursquare deliberately stalks the streets, trying to find new places to check in. The act

of wandering becomes obsolete, as the passing surroundings are no longer valued in view of the

prize of finding a place to check in. The walk between places is of less importance in comparison to

the hunt for new places as the unlocking of different badges persists. Each check-in shows a small

map that locates the place the user has logged in to. The map is not navigational, and it is not pos-

sible to zoom in and out to see the relationship with the logged place and the surrounding spaces,

highlighting the importance of place and location over the routes in between. The world is

remapped through a series of check-ins in the world of Foursquare. Each check-in needs to be

collected in order to gain more badges. Places are formed through the act of naming the place

as determined by the user, as well as categorizing the place as determined by the preset categories

in the application. Categories are broken down into general groups of places, and then these are

broken down once again into further sub-categories. The first image shows the general categories

available in Foursquare. Clicking on the travel category then breaks this down further into types of

travel location such as hotels or airports. Clicking on airports then gives the user the option to ‘get

more specific’ and define the place within the airport such as the terminal or particular gate they

are departing from.

Marc Auge (1995: 79) in his work Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermo-

dernity defines places such as ‘airports and railway stations, hotel chains, leisure parks, large retail

outlets’ and so on as ‘non-places’. For Auge (1995: 77) ‘[i]f a place can be defined as relational,

historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or

historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place’. In Foursquare, users are deliberately

marking places such as airports and railway stations as places of identity by naming them and

sharing them with others. Therefore, the ‘non-place’ of the airport becomes place through the use

of the application. The airport becomes placed through the user’s recognition of its existence and is

in turn given an identity linked to using the check-in system. This identity is then extended through

the social network attached to Foursquare and other users’ subsequent check-ins.

Another part of the app’s purpose is to share your location and thoughts about it with others.

Users can add their friends to the app, just like other social networking sites such as Facebook and

Twitter. It is then possible for friends to see where other friends are and read comments about

places that have been visited. By marking these places on a map and discussing them with others,

users are leaving behind a representation of an area and giving it a historical meaning, however

short-lived. Therefore, Auge’s ‘non-places’ can be seen to be turning into ‘places’ through using




the application. As Dourish (2006: 303) notes in his discussions of place: ‘cultural and social

accounts of space are fundamental to our everyday experience’. Logging into these places and

showing where you have supposedly been, not only creates a social network, but creates a cultural

trail of thoughts about particular places at that moment. The introduction of fixing the place on the

map for others to see and experience makes places more prominent in often unfamiliar spaces.

Even familiar spaces are being remapped and re-placed with added meanings through the types

of places inputted into the Foursquare database and the comments that users leave behind.

The ways that places and spaces are constructed start to change with the increasing database of the

application.

Distorting space

The map does not let us see anything as such. Instead, it lets us see the world how others have seen it

and how they want us to see it. (Pickles, 2004: 61)

Foursquare not only allows users to check in to places such as shops, work places and other

points of interest, it also allows users to create their own locations to check in to. The maps of

Foursquare are generated by users logging in and using the app therefore the emergent map grows

as users continue to log in and more users start to join. The creation of their own places allows for

originality on behalf on the user and for unusual places to be created. In my own local search there is a

place titled ‘walking in ...’. Like all other places in Foursquare, ‘walking in ...’ has its own location

on the map yet the phrase defines an action as opposed to a place. Therefore, ‘walking in ...’ is more

likely to be part of a route used as the creator walks in to work, the shops, and so on. This allows for a

remapping of new places that would not usually be discussed or defined in this way. The virtual map

of Foursquare creates places that are important to the user as opposed to those landmarks that are

used to guide people through unknown spaces. Foursquare can be seen as the creation of a cultural

map, depicting the places seen as relevant to the people experiencing them. As the foregoing quo-

tation from Pickles states, the map has many uses, and can be a way of showing the places that the

creator of the map wants us to see. Location-based media allow the user to be map creator, a gen-

erator of an ephemeral map evolving with their own uses and the uses of others within the network.

The generation of our own places has allowed other users to create their own real or imaginary

places. Alongside checking in to places, users can comment on the places they have been to, much

like using Twitter. Comments range from how many people are there with the user, to the state of

the coffee, but each comment is the construction of the user’s voice. There are no preset requisites

linked to the comments allowing the geo-located commentary to be placed in the hands of the indi-

vidual. Much like the ‘walking in ...’ check-in point, the comments are user-defined and their

meaning lies with the creator. Each subsequent user checking in then interprets the location or

comment in his or her own way. New comments can be left at the location, changing the represen-

tation of the cultural map starting to develop through multiple users finding new places or changing

their opinions about old ones.

The ‘walking in . . . ’ check-in found within the Foursquare database of places, shows how peo-

ple are starting to equate location with movement. However, it is possible to check in to multiple

disconnected places within a short period of time whilst using the system. Each check-in displays a

small map as to where that place is located and it is not possible to zoom in or out of the map.

The position remains fixed on screen as a representation of the place in relation to a few other

areas, such as connecting street names. The emphasis of Foursquare is on collecting places and

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not following the routes between places, therefore, it is possible to partially cheat the system. In the

space of a few seconds between each check-in, it is possible to check in a couple of different places

that are miles apart in real world terms. In real time it would take approximately five minutes by

car to get between point A and point B and another five minutes between point B and point C, yet in

Foursquare I can check in to each location seconds after one another. Foursquare does eventually

prevent you checking in to places after a string of successive check-ins but it is still possible to log

multiple locations once again after a time delay has expired. This distortion of space continues

through checking in to places located within an area in which the user may not physically be.

On a recent search whilst standing on the beach I was able to check in to a boat that could not

be seen out to sea. Not only did I unlock the ‘I’m on a boat badge’, I did so by distorting space,

by logging in to a location I was not physically at. Notions of spatiality (and temporality) are dis-

torted by the need to check in and collect badges. Although collecting these places can heighten the

user’s awareness of an area, it can also lead to the creation of more spaces, the areas we experience

in order to get somewhere rather than the places we form an attachment to. The attachment also

starts to extend to the reward of the application and not to the actual place itself. Whereas the

check-in does not force the user to take in their surroundings, it may encourage them to move

between places more frequently and search out new areas. It is the function of collecting that will

now be discussed in terms of augmented reality games available through mobile media.

Collecting spaces

Collecting items is a common theme in many games. Jones (2008) notes the importance of

collecting in videogames in particular. He states that: ‘[g]ames involve collecting, and collecting is

itself a game. It’s often competitive, a repeated quest to gather the stuff of an arbitrarily-defined

universe, to overcome obstacles [and so on]’ (Jones, 2008: 47). If Foursquare is discussed in

terms of an act of collecting places then in some ways it is possible to see it as a type of game.

In Foursquare, the universe is the user-generated map of places, the quest is to gather as many

places as possible and to compete against other people in search of more badges and real-world

offers. However, one such anomaly of the user-generated map in the case of Foursquare is its

strong connections with companies advertising their products and using the application as a way

of promoting themselves through users checking in. As mentioned previously, it is possible for users

to become (a virtual) mayor of a place through continuous check-ins over a period of time. This can

lead to rewards of free coffees, or discounts on products. At the same time, the application has a ‘tips’

menu where every user can leave comments about places, although companies often use this feature

to promote products, events or again, offer discounts or special offers to ‘passers-by’. It is a quick

way for companies to access people within the area and show off what they have to offer.

So, although it is possible for users to add to the general database of places, much of what exists

on Foursquare is linked to potential commercial gain, fixing the map within a rigid structure of the

service industry. This removes some of the playful qualities of the platform, and instead embeds it

into a global marketing tool, questioning the concept of Foursquare as a mobile gaming application.

There are further qualities, other than the act of collection that define what Juul sees to

constitute a game. He notes:

[a]ccording to a widespread theory, [video]games are goal-orientated, rule-based activities where

players find enjoyment in working towards the game goal. According to this theory, game goals

provide a sense of direction and set up the challenges that the players face. (Juul 2007: 191)




Hjorth and de Souza e Silva also discuss the purpose of the goal when discussing urban spaces as

play spaces. They state that ‘rules exist not as an ultimate goal but as clues for navigating spaces’

(de Souza e Silva and Hjorth, 2009: 606). Therefore, the rules of Foursquare are to check in to

more places in order to gain further rewards and it can be seen that these rewards could lead the

user to move through more spaces. However, as discussed previously, in the case of Foursquare,

navigation is limited to distances as opposed to large-scale, top-down views on a map. Instead

small mapped representations of place allow users to navigate spaces to try and reach a new des-

tination. This raises questions of how other mobile media open up game experiences through the

act of collection combined with navigating the map in order to unlock goals and gain rewards.

It is now possible for the location to become the gameworld through using GPS technologies:

in-built digital compasses and cameras combined with augmented reality applications. Here the act

of collecting starts to change as the real world and the virtual world are combined as a means for

players to explore spaces in another way again. Augmented reality (AR) is the ability to augment

real-world spaces with virtual objects or even layered spaces. AR was once only possible through

fixed markers that determined what virtual objects would be shown through the camera.

This is a technique still used with the AR Playstation Portable game Invizimals (Novarama,

2009). Invizimals uses a cardboard marker to display three-dimensional monsters that compete

against each other in the player’s real-world space. However, it is now also possible to view

AR virtual spaces through smartphones such as the iPhone. Using the iPhone’s camera, GPS

and digital compass, applications are able to track the player’s surrounding area and augment

it with virtual objects. This has led to the creation of augmented reality games such as Argh

(Cheng et al., 2009). In Argh the player moves around their own indoor or outdoor space(s) in

order to capture virtual ghosts using the iPhone camera. The virtual ghosts are augmented

amongst a backdrop of the player’s own real world environment shown through the camera

as shown in Figure 1.

Here the real world becomes the game map. The real world walls of the player’s own living

spaces cannot be moved through, much like the bounded architecture of fully virtual gamespaces.

This makes the game map individual to each player of the game and the experience of each space

will be different on new plays. Although the aim of the game is to collect ghosts, this can only

be achieved through collecting spaces. The term space is used here over place, as the player is

constantly moving through areas and the augmented ghosts do not have a relationship linked to

defined places in the player’s view. If the game is played without a break in the action, the player is

then forced to move to new areas. For example, if the inside of the house is cleared of ghosts, the

player then has to move out into the streets and new areas (as determined by the GPS) in order to

collect more ghosts. The number of ghosts for each area is shown by a text description at the top of

the screen. As shown in Figure 1, there are still three more ghosts remaining in that area to be

captured. The player can continue to move on without finding them in the area, but if they are all

found a message is displayed on screen telling the player they have to find new places, as shown in

the screenshot in Figure 2. The game then instructs the player to explore other places to find more

ghosts. The idea of collecting ghosts through the collection of space is the goal of the game.

However, it is possible to cheat the system. If the game is closed down and then reloaded, the

original spaces of the house are turned into new areas for ghosts to appear. The appearance of

ghosts within the game is random as on each play they will appear at slightly different positions

within the same room. Therefore, there are two layers of collection within the game design.

The first is the collection of ghosts, which is relatively easy, as although they appear in different

positions each time, clearing a space is usually a quick process. In order for the game to have

Gazzard 411



longevity, the player has to seek out new areas and collect new spaces. Again, the term space is

used as there is no attachment to landmarks or places that would generally hold the greatest number

of ghosts. The attraction of the game is in finding the different types of ghost within the game

system. These are not related to particular places, but movement through space can generate more

ghosts to be found in the system.

Although the emphasis of the game is on collecting spaces, this can only occur through the

player’s movement of the phone. The location of the player is also important in continuing to find

new ghosts, therefore routes between places cannot be ignored as part of the game playing process.

The game can be played anywhere, it is not limited to the players’ own houses. As the mobile

phone is a portable device, the game can be taken with the user and played in different areas

including both inside and outside spaces. However, much like much like collecting places in

Foursquare the game is purposefully played. The player deliberately opens up the game system in

order to stalk the ghosts, and the player’s attention is fixed on the screen in front of them.

Therefore, the act of finding the ghosts does not occur through an aimless wander, as the only way

for the player to capture a ghost is to be fully aware of its placement on the screen. This poses the

question of how the game may be changing the player’s relationship with the spaces around them.

In discussing Debord’s idea of the derive in relation to mobile games, de Souza e Silva and

Hjorth (2009: 609) write, ‘[b]y using city spaces without any further purpose, the practice of the

derive ‘‘forces’’ participants to look at the familiar urban spaces with a different set of eyes’.

Debord (2009: 78) himself defines the derive as ‘a technique of swift passage through varied

Figure 1. Virtual ghost mapped against a real-world backdrop through the camera. (http://arghgame.com,copyright Off Panel Productions)




environments’. The derive is not concerned with wandering. Instead it is a deliberate act of

redefining your own surroundings, and as such was usually conducted in groups of people for open

discussions and interpretations of areas. It also was usually focused around urban areas as the

countryside was considered to have fewer landmarks and associated meanings. It is through

layering new aspects onto our surroundings through augmented reality games that the derive can be

experienced through the real and virtual. The same places are visited, but with a new meaning,

through virtual spaces augmented onto the familiar and bringing a new light to old surroundings.

The space is now explored in a new way through this augmentation and the added game element of

collecting. The player has a purpose, much like Sinclair’s ‘stalker’ and the goals of the game tend

to not equate themselves to a leisurely wander through spaces. The quotidian landscape is trans-

formed and has to be walked in order to progress through the game yet there is the question as to

whether both spaces are viewed simultaneously or whether the game layer acts as an overriding

element. The game screen obscures the real world space and although it is experienced through the

act of physical walking and an awareness of the space around us, the game layer becomes the

primary focus. Movement through real-world space enables the game to continue and new objects

to be collected, but it is not the focus of the users’ attention. Auge states: ‘The traveler’s space may

thus be the archetype of non-place’ (Auge, 1995: 86). This is not true of the augmented space that

is given a relationship to the player and an identity through the layering of the virtual world.

However, the player is still more likely only to view spaces rather than places as the mapping

of the space, whether familiar or not, is not the purpose of the game. It is only the physical move-

ment through space that becomes relevant.

Figure 2. Area cleared in Argh iPhone game. (http://arghgame.com, copyright Off Panel Productions)

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Once again, augmented reality leads to the distortion of space. Through the augmented reality

game it is possible to reset the space through each play. There is no attachment to particular parts of

the space where objects to be collected may lie. Just as time passes within the quotidian, time also

passes through resetting the game. The original ghosts have been captured and over time new ones

are allowed to appear. Whereas Foursquare is about the collection of places with little emphasis on

how movement between those places occurs, movement is vital in augmented reality as a way of

collecting space. This makes it impossible to have a two-dimensional map of the game area as the

game world is created through the player’s movement through real-world space as depicted on

the iPhone’s camera display. Videogames often use maps within their design to help a player’s

navigation of the virtual space. In the case of augmented reality the map becomes the user’s space.

Therefore, a two-dimensional map of the game would be represented by a two-dimensional map of

the surrounding area as shown on Google Maps (or similar). Console or PC based videogames con-

sist of texture mapping and similar places in order to confuse the player and make the space appear

larger than it is. The architecture of the augmented reality game Argh is the same architecture that

the player experiences outside of the game. Nature and patterns evolve through time, seasons

change, room layouts can be modified, and therefore the gameworld can continue to change over

time with the player. This is why in Argh the position of the ghosts is randomly created on each

play of the same space. The positioning of the ghosts also changes with time. It is not possible

to map their positions, create walkthroughs and tell other players of their exact location as their

location changes with the player’s own experiences of moving the iPhone around different spaces.

Whereas non-location-based, screen-based videogames allow for a separation between the map

and the experience of moving through three-dimensional space, the AR game Argh enables the

map to grow out of the experience. The map is not a way of understanding movement from

A to B, but it is ephemeral and constitutes the gameworld in that moment.

Layaring our positions

Augmented Reality is not only limited to games on the iPhone. The release of an AR browser

called Layar (2009, also available on Android phones) has enabled other people to develop uses for

AR on the phone. Different individuals or companies can create their own layars through regis-

tering to be a developer, and then their own layars are uploaded to be used by others within the

browser. The different layars work in the same way as the game Argh. Virtual spaces or objects are

laid over what the iPhone camera depicts of the real world through using GPS co-ordinates and the

built-in digital compass. Layars range from being able to show you houses available to buy or rent

in your immediate area to where the nearest takeaways are with reviews of the food and service.

Again, layars generally highlight local areas and services located within global systems of maps

and satellites. One layar is called Tweeps Around (3D) (Squio, 2010). Using the camera on the

iPhone and viewing an indicator at the top right hand corner of the layar allows you to see

location-based tweets from Twitter in your area. Users can view images of the person’s profile and

their accompanying tweet as shown in Figure 3. This provides a 3D map of tweets in your local

area. Unlike searching for twitter hashtags or trending topics, the location-based information with

added visuals allows users of Twitter to find out what people around them are micro-blogging

about. It gives an insight into their own area and the people around them, with the information

changing as often as people update their twitter feed. This once again shows the ephemeral nature

of the user-generated map, only captured permanently for that instant through screen-shots and

changing the identity of a place with each update.




In contrast to this is the Mapidoo layar (Hendel, 2010). Mapidoo combines both two-

dimensional mapping with the three-dimensional representation of space as offered by the

iPhone’s camera. The layar generates a two-dimensional street map view of the current area, with

the user’s position being where the map starts at the bottom of the screen and the surrounding areas

shown through street names, landmarks, named buildings and so on. This once again changes our

relationship with the spaces around us. Streets and buildings usually obscured by physical

buildings in our everyday view of the space are now depicted through the two-dimensional map.

The two-dimensional map overlay is provided by Open Street Maps; an open source map project

that enables users to update the maps with information as a networked community based project.

Therefore, the information available to each user as they use Mapidoo depends on how much

Figure 3. Screenshot from Tweeps Around (3D). (Copyright 2011 TABWorldmedia.com)

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information has been updated to Open Street Map. Some places may have more information than

others but however much detail is shown, this duality of mapping changes our relationship with the

spaces we are walking through.

In moving through and viewing spaces and places, de Certeau (1984: 92) discusses the city in

terms of the ‘voyeur’ as opposed to the ‘walker’. The walker is discussed as the person seeing the

city from street level while the voyeur is able to view the city from above, admiring its overall

structure. Through using the AR layar of Mapidoo we are now able to experience both of these

views simultaneously. The two-dimensional layered map allows us to be a ‘voyeur’ experiencing

the outline of the city as we move through it, and the edge of the camera display and the awareness

of our surroundings outside of the iPhone screen also allows us to be walkers of the city’s streets.

Unlike applications that are focused on the collection of spaces or places, Mapidoo allows the user

a new perspective of their immediate area. This encourages the act of exploration and wandering,

through opening up the ability to see different areas. Our perception of space and place is altered,

as places usually hidden beyond the impenetrable buildings are now viewable through the technol-

ogy of the augmented layering of information. The places depicted on the map are determined by

the people contributing to the map’s characteristics, meaning that the number of landmarks, place

names and even street names are area dependent. Some of the buildings become three-dimensional

if they have been added in to the layar, but in everyday streets outside of large town or city centres,

the view is restricted to a two-dimensional representation only. This once again reminds us of the

local networks created by location-based technologies. Open source maps in particular highlight

how communities can be viewed and our local area experienced depending on the people

contributing to further knowledge about our areas. We may now discover new places through

Mapidoo allowing us to see beyond the built-up areas we live in. We may also miss other places

by relying on the map, which may not contain information about every existing place around us.

Although the technology opens up new interpretations and allows for new discoveries, so too does

walking the streets differently without this new database of information constantly available to us.

Conclusion

‘Mobile games intervene in the maps – geographic, emotional, social and technological – that trace

the patterns of everyday life’ (de Souza e Silva and Hjorth, 2009: 608). This is also true of other

mobile location-based media. Foursquare sits somewhere between social media, targeted advertis-

ing and a collection-based game but it does allow users to map new (fictional and non-fictional

places) for others to find. Users can add to spaces and highlight new places for others to discover

and give opinions about. Each discussion and check-in also shows what we are doing in these

places, our views about them and who we are interacting with both on and offline. However, this

application is also based around the idea of collecting place, which can distort our experience of the

spaces around us as checking in takes precedence over movement.

In contrast to this, augmented reality games focus on collecting space (and sometimes place) as

they force us to move through spaces to collect virtual objects, such as the ghosts of Argh.

Although players are moving through spaces they are not necessarily experiencing the world

around them as the virtual layer may override any other view in the background of the gamespace.

In Argh the map of the game is constructed out of the world around the player. It determines where

the player can and cannot move and sets the limits of the game exploration. Objects found on screen

can never be permanently mapped as the experience for each player is often unique depending on

their positioning and the layout of the spaces they are moving through. Both Foursquare and Argh




highlight the user/player as ‘stalker’. The act of wandering becomes obsolete, as the purpose is to

find new places, and not always recognize those spaces or places in-between.

Augmented reality also offers users a new way of viewing existing spaces around them.

Exploring the world using the AR browser Layar allows for a new perspective on the local area.

Existing boundaries of place can be removed by augmenting a new mapped layer onto our

immediate areas. The act of wandering partially returns as new areas are opened up by a change in

perspective and become new spaces of exploration. Comments about where we live and the times

we live in can be left by the people who live there through location-based tweets and services such

as Foursquare. Our tweets can be used to map our existing spaces, providing an ever-changing

database of information about the spaces around us. The map is changing through these new tech-

nologies, once again reworking our understanding of the spaces and places around us. However the

function of the map remains the same. The map is not only a way of finding a route between places,

but a cultural artefact providing a window onto various aspects of global and local spaces around us.

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Biography

Alison Gazzard is a post-doctoral research fellow in New Media at the University of Bedfordshire, UK. Her

doctoral thesis examined paths in both the real world and the spaces of the videogame. Her current research focuses

on location-based media, augmented reality and videogames in particular issues of space, place and presence.

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Documents

Location, location, location: Collecting space and place in mobile