The work presented in this portfolio demonstrates a focused progression of ideas concerning mobile/location-based experiences, ubiquitous computing and the spaces of everyday life. It is my intent to show how this progression has transpired and how it leads to the current conceptualization of my dissertation project. The focus of my work throughout the projects listed below has been to make people aware of the world around them and their role in that world. I have chosen to use mobile and ubiquitous computing technologies as my medium to design experiences and interactions that connect people to ideas, objects and the built environment in new ways. Many of these projects have been collaborative efforts and were developed both through coursework and in the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab [MEML] within the Interactive Media Division.
In 2004, Tracking Agama used basic mobile phone technology to encourage users to explore downtown Los Angeles in new ways via an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). Working against the ideas (at the time) that mobile phone use is both disrupting and isolating in public spaces, Tracking Agama aimed instead to reconnect people to the city through the use of their mobile phones. This project invited participants to look at downtown Los Angeles neighborhoods in new ways while becoming immersed in a fictional narrative that unfolded in real locations.
From here my focus shifted to using mobile phones and web interfaces to make users more aware of their environmental impact. TerraPed(2007) was conceptualized for a class project in World Building and provides a platform for understanding one’s personal environmental impact and how small changes of habit could make a difference. For Foodprint(2008), I developed a concept for engaging with foods and products in a grocery store or farmers market to make consumers more aware of where their foods come from. Using a mobile phone with a 2d barcode reader, I designed a conceptual interface with which users could scan the food labels they were interested in purchasing to learn the products’ backstory – where the product came from, how it arrived at the market, what its carbon footprint was.
My most recent work has taken place within the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab, for which I was a Research Assistant in 2008-2009 and have continued to focus my research efforts. The work of this lab has thus far taken on two specific forms that embody concepts for The Future of the Story: CityStory, which encourages collaborative, crowd sourced filmmaking; and Million Story Building, which focuses on location-specific and context-aware interactions with the new School of Cinematic Arts building and the objects within, as demonstrated in the StoryObjects project. The Million Story Building (MSB) project, which is a work in progress, most closely demonstrates the direction I plan to take towards the practical implementation of my dissertation. This project explores the idea of Ambient Storytelling though daily interactions with the SCA building and the objects and artifacts within it. My goal going forward is to continue this direction in my research, in which interaction between people and physical spaces can become rich storytelling places.
All projects are listed below, starting with my three most recent projects developed in the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab, working down to my first project at USC, Tracking Agama.
The objects of our everyday lives have a backstory, as well as a continuously emerging history, that we might never discover without doing a bit of research. Each object contains a concept, a designer, a fabricator, and materials from which it is made, but the owner/user of that object rarely knows what the story of that object is. At the same time, once objects are acquired and put into use, they take on a life of their own in which they might have experiences and interactions with both people and other objects. These experiences and interactions can be embedded within the object, creating an ongoing contextual history, until the product is finally dismantled, recycled, or repurposed… at which point, it begins this cycle again. Ubiquitous computing technologies provide the tools for embedding information within objects as well as communicating that information to the personal, mobile devices we carry with us every day.
Recently, a number of corporations and food distributers have begun to embed their products with backstory as a demonstration of social responsibility and accountability. Dole Organic has added a farm number to their organic bananas, in which the buyer can go to the dole website, enter the farm number and see pictures of the farm where their fruit was grown and hear stories from the farmers. The Japanese Food Safety Commission has placed RFID tags or QR codes on food products which allows users to access information about where the product was harvested, where it was packed and how it was shipped. As shoppers become more concerned about the origin of their produce and products for both health and safety and ethical reasons, instant access to kind of information through ones’ mobile phone allows people to make informed decision about the products they buy.
In addition to providing people with information to help them make socially responsible product decisions, the StoryObjects project investigates the potential for new forms of storytelling between people and everyday objects. The current phase of this project consists of a custom-designed table for the new School of Cinematic Arts Lucas Building. The table is sustainably constructed using reclaimed materials from both the old George Lucas Instructional Building and the old MGM Studios Sound Stage 28. This table is embedded with images and information that is accessible when building inhabitants who are using the Million Story Building iPhone application come within bluetooth proximity of the table. The embedded information is transmitted to a users mobile phone, with more pieces of the story becoming available as the user spends more time with the object.
StoryObjects was exhibited at the Intel Student Design Expo, September 21-22 2009.
Project Overview slides from Intel PresentationPDF
Million Story Building is an experiment in ambient storytelling that takes place throughout the new School of Cinematic Arts Building. MSB is experienced through the use of a custom iPhone application that allows the building itself to communicate with users about current activity in the building, sensor data, and inhabitant interaction with the building, including movie tagging activity and QR code scanning. The building has its own Twitter stream and Flickr page that feeds into the iPhone application, which it uses to tweet about building activity and collect photos from inhabitants by inviting them to participate in daily photo collection missions. The application offers users a set of tools for directly interfacing with the building, using a 2d barcode reader, the camera, a built in pedometer and a digital story archive, and a media library. As building inhabitants engage more frequently with the building, the building begins to build a relationship with its inhabitants and asks for help in learning about itself, its inhabitants, and the outside world.
[Mobile and Environmental Media Lab: Principle Investigator, Prof. Scott Fisher; Research Assistant and Project Manager, Jen Stein; MEML Team: Marientina Gotsis, Andreas Kratky, Peter Pruess, Jen Stein, Jeff Watson; iPhone Programming: Will Carter]
CityStory is an experiment in crowd source/open source filmmaking. Participants of CityStory are sent a piece of the script each day via Twitter or SMS and are asked to interpret the script through the lens of their camera phones. Participants are then asked to submit their videos, which are arranged into a 4×4 video matrix created for 4k projection. The script for CityStory is based on 14 excepts from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Videos were submitted by participants in both Los Angeles and Tokyo.
[Mobile and Environmental Media Lab: Scott Fisher, Marientina Gotsis, Jen Stein, Jeff Watson, Hide Yasuda]
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CityStory 2.0
CityStory 2.0 is an interactive recombinant narrative in which all videos submitted in version 1.0 were tagged and connected to story elements based on the Invisible Cities text. The interface is designed to let a participant choose five sets of keywords that will ultimately generate a personalized recombinant narrative.
This design intervention was created as a final project for an urban design course called PPD 644 Shaping the Built Environment in the School of Policy, Planning, and Development. The goal of this project was to diagnose an existing public space and design an intervention that would make the space more useful or habitable. Instead of knocking down buildings or moving roads, I designed a set of context-specific responsive/interactive installations for London’s South Bank arts centre. My intent was to use ubiquitous and physical computing technologies to transform the South Bank into a playful space that introduced passers-by to the activities that took place within these structures.
Though the South Bank is already a well-used public space with a beautiful tree-lined riverside walkway, benches, and a number of art centers, the buildings that line parts of the South Bank are often criticized for their brutalist mid-century modernist architecture, predominantly constructed of concrete and glass. One main point of criticism calls attention to the lack of human-scale buildings, instead consisting of concrete behemoths which overshadow the users of the space. The focus of this project is on the site directly surrounding Waterloo Bridge, which includes a short stretch of the riverside walkway that provides access to the Royal National Theatre, the British Film Institute Southbank, The Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Royal Festival Hall heading from the east to the south-west
This project presents a visual public-art based intervention that transforms the urban landscape using projection, cinematic images, sound and responsive architecture. This intervention considers the history of the area, as well as contextual information related to the arts and cultural institutions directly surrounding this section of the South Bank. By using cinematic and media-based elements to augment this site, the South Bank will become a dynamic, human-scale space designing art installations on the exterior of the buildings and around the riverside walkway. These installations are meant to inspire interaction between the people who traverse this public space and the built environment itself. The buildings and walkways will become dynamic screens, and instead of transforming these spaces through physical changes, technologies will be used to digitally enhance the urban landscape.
There are currently no services or food labels in the US that offer environmental information to shoppers, making it more difficult to understand the impact our food consumption has on sustainability. Foodprint is a concept for a mobile- and web-based tool designed to help consumers make more informed decisions about the food they buy, where it comes from, and the environmental impact of the processing and transport of food items from source to market.
The Foodprint experience begins in your local market with foods marked with 2D barcodes. If you wish to learn more about the origin of your product, how much CO₂ and other greenhouse gases were released in the transport of a specific food,and the availability of alternative products, you can use your mobile phone to take a photo of the barcode, which will return information about that product. From there, you can then choose to save this information to your personal Foodprint page for a closer look at the overall impact of your shopping day, as well as receive suggestions about similar products and tips for more sustainable shopping. Foodprint also provides a visualization of the transportation routes your food takes and a breakdown of the CO₂ emitted, as well as a printable or text-based shopping list for your next trip to the market.
TerraPed is an emergent, data-driven world that is dependent upon the ecological impact of humans in the physical world. Its well-being is determined by the ecological and carbon footprint left behind by each of its inhabitants. Each inhabitant will engage with a dynamic visualization of their individual footprint and its place on the planet. This footprint is created after an inhabitant completes the Ecological and Carbon Footprint Survey.
This simulation is driven by three components: an inhabitants’ personal ecological and carbon footprint; external information related to climate and environmental change via news stories and political (in)action; and the daily levels of dioxins in the atmosphere via air quality sensor data.
TerraPed also requires interaction amongst its inhabitants to make it a truly meaningful place. Inhabitants are encouraged to rate the significance of current news and policy development, share photos of things they do to improve the real world, and share knowledge about how we can all make the planet a more sustainable and healthy place to live.
This project was submitted to and accepted for Pervasive Persuasive Technology and Environmental Sustainability Workshop at Pervasive 2008, the 6th International Conference of Pervasive Computing: http://pervasive2008.org/workshops/pptes.html
[Concept Design: Jen Stein; Faculty Advisor: Peggy Weil]
Tracking Agama is an investigation in mobile and location-based storytelling. Using a combination of SMS messaging, voice calls and blog entries, Tracking Agama leads its participants on a narrative-based exploration of Los Angeles, in pursuit of the missing urban researcher, Agama, who has left a mysterious final post on his blog. Participants use a bit of detective work to find keywords embedded within locations around the city, while also discovering the hidden gems of downtown Los Angeles. These keywords are used to access Agama’s voice-activated and phone-accessible research notes, to send and receive SMS messages from Agama and his assistant, and receive calls from the virtual characters.
