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Mobile Culture Studies | >mcs_lab> 1 (2020)
Johanna Menhard | Entanglements on and with the street 29
Katharine S. Willis describe it.20 According to Buschauer and Willis, places would become
localities through GPS-technologies. Localities are not only cartographically accessible via
smartphone, in the form of a mapping of streets and urban space, but transport the feeling of
being part of a social and interconnected world. Smartphone users increasingly have access to
knowledge that had previously only been available to locals, and therefore switch from an out-
side to an inside perspective on the city. âDie Stadt wird somit nicht aufgrund der Erfahrung,
durch die in der Stadt verbrachte Zeit âgelesenâ, sondern vielmehr durch unsere FĂ€higkeit, Infor-
mationen zu lokalisieren und zu finden.â [The city is thus not âreadâ by experience, by the time
spent in the city, but rather by our ability to locate and find information, JM].21 Locative
media thus expand, supplement, and make the urban space experienceable beyond the local
and temporary. They enable, promote, make possible and/or prevent practices of perception,
movement and interaction on the street.22 Certainly, there was a desire in that choice. I wished
to feel local, located and embedded in the city through GPS-technologies â while remembering
very well all the journeys and hour-long walks on unfamiliar streets, where I passed windows,
facades, buildings, squares and corners which had no history, no meaning, no identity to me,
just names. By passing by and not relating to the places lining the streets, the urban space in
movement felt like a non-lieux, as I made no connections, felt unrelated, distant, solitary. Like
Marc AugĂ© puts it, âThe travellerâs space may thus be the archetype of non-placeâ, as the gaze
of the traveller just touches his own anticipated image.23 Over time, and the more I travelled,
it became easier and easier for me to find and see the places to connect, to exchange and share
experiences and knowledge; I had developed some strategies of where to start from and where to
get recommendations and contacts, but with all the technological help everything should have
been so much easier â especially in Estonia and Sweden, where digitalization was so much part
of everyday life and national identity, I thought.
On Tuesday, the 31st of July, I went by bus to Vienna, where I spent my evening until I had
to catch the night-bus to Warsaw at midnight. I hadnât booked or planned much beforehand, so
I would be encouraged to use my phone as much as possible on my journey, for doing research,
to find my way, to get in contact with other people to spent my time with, to find accommo-
dation for the night or to get a ride to the next town or city. I had some money and a tent with
me â just in case. However, I thought using my phone and installing so many apps that should
help me to connect with people and places would work out perfectly.
After crossing the border to Poland in the night of the 1st of August, my internet connection
20 See Regine Buschauer/Katharine S. Willis: Einleitung. In: Regine Buschauer/Katharine S. Willis (eds.), Locative
Media. MedialitĂ€t und RĂ€umlichkeit â MultidisziplinĂ€re Perspektiven zur Verortung der Medien/Multidiscipli-
nary Perspectives on Media and Locality. Bielefeld: transcript 2013. pp. 7-45, here pp. 15-17.
21 Buschauer/Willis 2013, pp. 15-17.
22 See also Manuel Schramm: Digitale Kartographie und Locative Media. Eine historische Perspektive. In: Regine
Buschauer/Katharine S. Willis (eds.), Locative Media. MedialitĂ€t und RĂ€umlichkeit â MultidisziplinĂ€re Pers-
pektiven zur Verortung der Medien/Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Media and Locality. Bielefeld: transcript
2013, pp. 123-136.
Teri Rueb: This is (not) a map. In: Regine Buschauer/Katharine S. Willis (eds.), Locative Media. MedialitÀt
und RĂ€umlichkeit â MultidisziplinĂ€re Perspektiven zur Verortung der Medien/Multidisciplinary Perspectives on
Media and Locality. Bielefeld: transcript 2013, pp. 137-150.
23 Marc Augé: Non-places. Introduction to an anthropology of supermodernity. London/New York: Verso 1995, p.
86.
>mcs_lab>
Mobile Culture Studies, Band 1/2020
The Journal
- Titel
- >mcs_lab>
- Untertitel
- Mobile Culture Studies
- Band
- 1/2020
- Herausgeber
- Karl Franzens University Graz
- Ort
- Graz
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- deutsch, englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 108
- Kategorien
- Zeitschriften Mobile Culture Studies The Journal