The dialectic of mobility/mooring can be aligned with an increased proliferation of the hybridisation of the physical and digital environments. The intertwining of real and digital spaces causes a conceptual interchange of the notions of place and space. Places are ‘territories of meaning that arise from the experiences of living. Places are inhabited spaces populated by people, their concerns, their memories, stories, conversations, encounters and artefacts’ (Coyne, 2010, p. xvi). Users employ various devices such as the smartphone which interacts with these places and this activity thus affects social relations. We can make a distinction of space/place referring to ‘space’ as a geometrical and mechanical ordering against ‘place’ as being more engaged and experiential (Brewer and Dourish, 2008; Coyne, 2010). Pervasive digital devices not only allow users to ‘tune’ into real world places, but also increasingly tune cyberspace. In this context the metaphor of ‘tuning’ can be considered an assemblage of technological, environmental and representational conditions, which are delivered to, for instance, the smartphone or tablet, and personalised by the user. Spaces can be considered mathematical constructions which ‘invoke the notion of uniform continuum by which the distinctiveness of place is erased or submerged’ (Brewer and Dourish, 2008, p. 3). Social media spaces may be considered a tuning of spaces, controlled by sophisticated algorithms and code, delivered through a standard template available for users to engage with.
The introduction of smartphones gave rise to an important shift from sedentary to mobile internet access and resulted in a mobility and digital information merge (Frith, 2012). Increased smartphone use gave rise to locative media technologies embracing ‘online maps and proliferating layers of geographically referenced content that are fundamentally imbricated with contemporary experiences in and representations of place.’ (Boulton and Zook, 2013, p 437). Social media art curators are able to pin the artwork on a Google map, thus sharing information with other users, collecting the community's pins and retracing a physical journey.
A number of authors illustrate the implications of this technology (Boulton and Zook, 2013, Firth 2013, Hjorth and Gu 2012, Richardson 2007) with the common strand contributing to the visuality of people and digital objects. The concept of ‘visuality’ refers here to what some authors (Boulton and Zook 2013, Rose 2012) understand as Hal Foster’s ‘visuality’ or a ‘regime of the seeing: how seeing is structured, how “we are able, allowed, or made to see, and how we see this seeing and the unseeing” (quoted in Gillian Rose, 2012, p 9)’. We are now dealing with a new hybrid space since the digital is also the personalised, the social enabled Web 2.0 technology interacting with the real world spaces folded into one, organised and filtered into a (mobile) personalised database city, populated by GPS rich data (Frith, 2012, p 145).
In this regard, the hybrid landscape, can be the software code translating a way of seeing, what is ‘(re)produced through computer screens, cell phones, traffic management, circulations of images and discourse, geospatial surveillance, and myriad other more or less insidious and more or less taken-for-granted manifestations of code’s work’ (Boulton and Zook, 2013, p 437). The mobility/mooring is embedded in the coding of the software, aligned with the physical mobility of its users, incorporated into our daily routines.
Sheller and Urry (2006b) and Adrian Mackenzie (2006) suggest that Wi-Fi networks afford an increase in the mobility of digital data which concerns the folding of data into identifiable hot-spot locations where available Wi-Fi connection is crucial. Once the social media user is positioned near such a hot-spot, data is diverted from the local hot spots linking the physical space to online global flow.
The introduction of smartphones gave rise to an important shift from sedentary to mobile internet access and resulted in a mobility and digital information merge (Frith, 2012). Increased smartphone use gave rise to locative media technologies embracing ‘online maps and proliferating layers of geographically referenced content that are fundamentally imbricated with contemporary experiences in and representations of place.’ (Boulton and Zook, 2013, p 437). Social media art curators are able to pin the artwork on a Google map, thus sharing information with other users, collecting the community's pins and retracing a physical journey.
A number of authors illustrate the implications of this technology (Boulton and Zook, 2013, Firth 2013, Hjorth and Gu 2012, Richardson 2007) with the common strand contributing to the visuality of people and digital objects. The concept of ‘visuality’ refers here to what some authors (Boulton and Zook 2013, Rose 2012) understand as Hal Foster’s ‘visuality’ or a ‘regime of the seeing: how seeing is structured, how “we are able, allowed, or made to see, and how we see this seeing and the unseeing” (quoted in Gillian Rose, 2012, p 9)’. We are now dealing with a new hybrid space since the digital is also the personalised, the social enabled Web 2.0 technology interacting with the real world spaces folded into one, organised and filtered into a (mobile) personalised database city, populated by GPS rich data (Frith, 2012, p 145).
In this regard, the hybrid landscape, can be the software code translating a way of seeing, what is ‘(re)produced through computer screens, cell phones, traffic management, circulations of images and discourse, geospatial surveillance, and myriad other more or less insidious and more or less taken-for-granted manifestations of code’s work’ (Boulton and Zook, 2013, p 437). The mobility/mooring is embedded in the coding of the software, aligned with the physical mobility of its users, incorporated into our daily routines.
Sheller and Urry (2006b) and Adrian Mackenzie (2006) suggest that Wi-Fi networks afford an increase in the mobility of digital data which concerns the folding of data into identifiable hot-spot locations where available Wi-Fi connection is crucial. Once the social media user is positioned near such a hot-spot, data is diverted from the local hot spots linking the physical space to online global flow.
Sheller and Urry (2006b) position online activity in a ‘technoscape’ emphasising that contemporary landscapes are shot through with technological elements which enrol people, space and the elements connecting people and spaces, into socio-technical assemblages. Mobile communication technologies can be considered as agents in the commodification process, supporting and playing an intricate role in the transformation of urban architectures, the infrastructures that support the cities, as well as the images that are circulated. ‘Material changes in the technologies and infrastructures of urban life appear to be “de-materializing” as connections, encounters and forms of co-presence are made and re-made in cities on the move’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006b, p 3).
Mackenzie (2006) along a similar trope suggests that every point on the surface of the earth is now part of the Hertzian landscape (after WJT Mitchell), an endless exchange of images across the globe. He further describes the flows of data on Wi-Fi network as a move across many different urban places, crossing many boundaries. Data flows between the public and private, between institutions and commerce, a heterogeneous mix relating to the global-local, the individual and collective identity, political participation, media, economy and technologies.
Kozinets (2010) labels such heterogeneity as ’co-determination’ that is shaping our bodies, our places and our identities. Mark Poster (1999) and Martin Hand (2008) see the associated digital activity as an act of ‘underdetermination’, ‘enabling the simultaneous reception, alteration and redistribution of cultural objects’ (Poster, 1999, p15). This follows Deleuze and Guattari's (2004) rhizomatic descriptions. As an example, uploading graffiti entails the artwork, initially bound by its geographic location, then becoming a cultural object that can be experienced globally. Its distribution may offer viewers a better understanding of the local social or political conditions. [1] This strengthens the observation that the mobility/mooring dialectic not only affects the software code and the geographical positions of the social media users. It also refers to the images of the artworks which are at time moored and at times mobile as part of the global online landscape.
Kozinets (2010) labels such heterogeneity as ’co-determination’ that is shaping our bodies, our places and our identities. Mark Poster (1999) and Martin Hand (2008) see the associated digital activity as an act of ‘underdetermination’, ‘enabling the simultaneous reception, alteration and redistribution of cultural objects’ (Poster, 1999, p15). This follows Deleuze and Guattari's (2004) rhizomatic descriptions. As an example, uploading graffiti entails the artwork, initially bound by its geographic location, then becoming a cultural object that can be experienced globally. Its distribution may offer viewers a better understanding of the local social or political conditions. [1] This strengthens the observation that the mobility/mooring dialectic not only affects the software code and the geographical positions of the social media users. It also refers to the images of the artworks which are at time moored and at times mobile as part of the global online landscape.
