More about maps
1. Agency is one of the “concepts” that has called my attention in some of the readings this and last week. Although I don’t really dare to provide an explanation of what this concept means, I think that it is important to think of it as an essential part in the creation/reproduction of space. For example, in non-representational theory the human body and ‘non-human’ things are given equal weight. Therefore, the hybrid frameworks that are built within the relationship between the body and other objects troubles the idea of agency only being a human body characteristic. However, de Waal considers that agency is an essential component in the construction of the active citizenship within the context of sentient technologies constructing the public sphere. Agency also appears in Sletto’s article on participatory mapping. When discussing the way in which participatory mappings become part of emancipatory politics, the ethical connotation of agency becomes an inherent part of the human body and its experiences. Once again, agency seems to be very important when thinking about embodied spaces. What is the role of agency in the production of space? What are the implications of putting agency at the levels of the collective, the individual, or the relationship human body-object?
2. As I read the articles for this week, I cannot stop thinking of the notion of the ‘digital divide’. In short, the ‘digital divide’ signal the gap between those with access to Internet (or other types of ‘modern’ telecommunications) and those without them. In a sense, we are all ‘touched’ by different types of technologies as we walk around the city (augmented architectural spaces, Internet hot-spots, cyber cafes, etc.). Nonetheless, I think that the way mobile interfaces are changing our ways to perceive the changes in the city is mainly experimented by those who have access to those modern technologies. Let’s think for example of the new iPhone 5. Apple included in this device a map application that allows the user to explore streets from a “2D” and a “3D” perspective. We would all agree that the introduction of this technology modifies the way in which we move around urban spaces. However, this feature is only available in the USA. Other applications (such as traffic and turn-by-turn navigation) are available only in some countries (http://www.apple.com/ios/feature-availability/). This makes me think that the experience of urban life and the relationship with mobile interfaces in context-based. Although this might sound obvious, my only concern is that some of these theories might address only the experiences of specific parts of the population. Although Sletto’s article shows that participatory mapping gathers the experiences, modes of knowledge, and embodied spaces to create the map of an indigenous community in Venezuela, it is true that these types of experiences don’t take place everywhere. In a sense, I wonder how theories about sentinel cities, mobile interfaces, and mapping and representation of space account for those sectors in society that do not have a direct relationship with the use of technology.
3. Maybe this is related to the previous comments/questions. Sletto emphasizes that in the experience of participative mapping the sense of space is created within the interaction of physicality (that is identifying space through the walking), knowledge, imagination, exclusion, and power. Moreover, the conception of space in Kumarakapay is being determined by what is traditional (represented by the elder) and the modern (represented by the younger members of the community). I think that reconciling these production of spatialities is something that cannot be only determined by collective negotiation but by aspects of power differentials. As Sletto argues “cartography is intimately related with power” (p. 463) which differs from the conception of cartography as an art (or maybe cartography as a social event). If we moved participative mapping to the broader context of the city, what would determine the negotiation of the sense of space? Shall we consider that the mapped version of the city depends on the performance of different actors and their embodied actions within the space? In other words, is it possible to have a unique map of a city where a myriad of stories and embodied events take place?
Augmented Space:
Derived from the conception of Agumented Reality, in which technology “superimposes data onto an object (or a person) through a mobile device” (Farman, 2012), Augmented Space could be thought of those electronic spatial practices that provide, gather, and analyze data or information that cannot be retrieved only from sensorial perceptions, but also from mobile interfaces.
Virtuality:
Out of the notion that the virtual sphere is the intangible, or a parallel (or false) reality, the Virtual Space must be considered as an extension of the real (or physical) space. As Farman (2012) explains, “the virtual serves as a way to understand the real and as a form of actualization that serves to layer and multiply an experience of that which is already realized” (p. 22). In other words, the virtual should be considered as a layered experience which is experimented through an embodied mobile practice. It is not that the virtual creates a world in which there are social interactions that are alien to actual ones.