Page - 32 - in >mcs_lab> - Mobile Culture Studies, Volume 1/2020

32 Mobile Culture Studies | >mcs_lab> 1 (2020)Johanna Menhard | Entanglements on and with the street with his mobile phone – everything is so much faster and easier, he said. When his fitness app reminded him to go for a walk, he took his dog for a walk – of course, if it is good for my health, he said. But not always everything works out so smoothly: When we passed his favourite café, he told me that he often meets his friends at this café, drinks a coffee, has a chat, and leaves when he wants to, no need to think about payment, since the application on his smartphone usually deals with it automatically. Sometimes the connection fails, however, and he goes with- out paying, not feeling responsible to check, trusting the application and the bartender to make sure the payment went through. But that’s no problem, things like that happen, he said.30 After my stay with Sky, I walked alone in the city much more than before. One day I was walking through the city centre of Tallinn, looking for a place to eat something. Next to a fast food store with free WiFi-connection, I opened Foursquare and searched for recommended places to eat nearby. Medieval-style, touristy taverns popped up – I thought, I certainly had not fed the application with enough information about myself, since these restaurants would be the last choice for me. I wanted to escape the touristy area and find a cosy vegan restaurant, so I used the filters and searched through the different entries myself. Once I found something that seemed like a nice restaurant to me, I disconnected from the internet and walked to the desig- nated area and looked up and down the street, peeking into back alleys and yards, but I couldn’t find the restaurant where it was supposed to be. After passing by a few times I discovered a house with a similar facade to the restaurant in the picture. It had indeed been the restaurant – years ago. The entry must have been years old, but was never deleted and thus still refers to a restaurant that only exists virtually, on the digital map. I felt disappointed and frustrated: How should I know which information is accurate, fits my needs and is up-to-date?31 Digital maps are certainly not filled with information independent of the people who inhabit the city space. From then on, I changed my strategy and focused on meeting other people and moving around with their suggestions and help. When my analogue camera broke, I asked Isa (who gave me the ride to Tallinn) and Katina (who I met at an event in Tallinn I found through Facebook), as I knew they might know some stores and technicians who could help, instead of searching through Foursquare or Google Maps, where such specific needs are not even covered. When I wanted to go out, I simply asked like-minded people I contacted via dating/blue-friending apps.32 In the end, I did not have many choices: I could ask someone or simply trust the informa- tion I can get through the app. Both choices can’t be seen separately. The maps I used are links to the people who provide the information I can access through the digital interface. But maps with streets nobody crosses, with places long gone, are like maps of ghost cities, empty, without information – or full of traces of the past. On the other hand, mobile phones are what Vilém Flusser calls “ungeheuerliche Dinge” [outrageous things, JM] since I do not fully understand what my mobile phone does for me, how it works and might fulfil my wishes.33 My lack of understanding is filled by imagination, with notions of how it could work, how it might function. Errors disrupt this relationship: 30 Based on fieldnotes on conversations with Sky, 05.08.2018, 06.08.2018. 31 Based on fieldnotes on my stay in Tallinn, 07.08.2018. 32 Based on fieldnotes, 08.08.2018, 12.08.2018. 33 See Vilém Flusser: Dinge und Undinge. Phänomenologische Skizzen. München/Wien: Hanser 1993, p. 7.