I’ve been looking at the Internet Archives ‘Wayback machine‘. The Internet Archive has been archiving the web since 1996 and has snapshots of every webpage that has existed in that time. The wayback machine can show you all the different variations of a particular URL. Its really interesting to see what sites looked like back in the days when the web wasn’t really the web we know. This shows a really interesting map of a particular URL and how it has been used over a period of time. Take a look at the entries that were found when I searched against google (there were thousands!) and also the prototype google page back in 1998.

I just had another meeting with Chris about the space project. I was trying to form my ideas into a physical project as so far all I have is theory. I want to translate the cycles and ‘use’ (brownfield) theories on to mapping the use of something. Chris suggested that text was a good one to look at, specifically keyboards. There are certain letters of the English alphabet that aren’t used half as much as others, this could provide some interesting maps of the use of language. It could either be a real time mapping system that shows the use of the letters on the keyboard as you type or it could be a system that maps the language use of a certain text or webpage to produce maps similar to the google mars example.

Ok, I have to start thinking about another project. I started a new module at the start of Janurary called Narrative and Digital form and its essentially about Narrative and the theory behind it in Digital practices. We have to “produce and present an original digital work that experiments with narrative and form in terms of conventions, languages, techniques or practices.” We havn’t had much lecture material so far, so as far as the project content is concerned I will have to wait and see. However if there is some way I can incorporate my newly found love of arduino and physicaly objects into the project then I will!

My critique into Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent for the Nintendo Wii looks at Morality in games and the use of the interactive capabilities of the Wii console. Download the PDF here.

Below are the comments from my recent presentation of my work. I’m not putting them on here to blow my own trumpet mind…they prove really useful for my further development:

“Eden and the transformative processes are rich. Social, economic and industrial analyses,are useful to understand the different powers that drive the cycles that you identify. Nice idea about forced and organic transformations - external inputs and internal. Good use of the blog to background the work. And good reference back to Foucault. the move to greenfield and brownfield is interesting now and your model of time for your cycles. Although you say that greenfield might be new or fresh but surely this is relative to your time and the apparent beauty of a space. Dartmoor has been preserved at it is now but it used to be a forest before they cut the trees down! but this insist on not reforesting it. So Dartmoor is brownfield really but people treat it as green. Your idea of people making things brown is great though because it says that the model of time is relative to the individual.”

I was looking at google mars last night. Its a new service from google that maps the surface of Mars in a google earth/maps stylee. They show it with 3 different views elevation, visible and infrared. It is the elevation view that I am most interested in as it uses a contour map of the surafce. This got me thinking about my space project. It would tie in nicely with the greenfield and brownfield theory and would provide some nice visulaisations of the space. Using the colours in the map I culd map the ’stains’ people leave on the space even developing it furtur showing the marks that people have left over a century giving some really rich maps of the space.

I am interested in the Greenfield and Brownfield idea where all space started out as ‘untouched’ land such as agricultural or ‘green’ land and slowly through cycles has evolved into brownfield or previously developed land which has been left to decay. I think this can provide some interesting views on a space, showing a previously invisable historic map of a space where people have left invisible ’stains’ on the land making it brown. I like the idea of using GPS to map the marks people leave on a particular space in real time showing the slow decay of the space facilitated by the ’stains’ or ‘marks’ people leave on the space.

On monday the 3rd Dec 07 Adam, Luke, Simon and I went along to the mscapeFest at the Hewlett Packard research labs in Bristol. Mscape is a beta software package that allows you to put hotspots over certain areas of real space using GPS and a windows mobile based device. This hotspot can then be assigned to trigger an event on the mobile device, be it a sound, image, video etc. They are also currently in the process of including other sensory devices such as RFID, active RF, infrared and barcode recognition for proximity sensing with many others on the cards. The two day event (we only went for the first day) consisted of various workshops outlining the various aspects of Mscape such as pervasive gaming, community building etc along with networking sessions and tonnes of free food! We managed to get some people interested in what we are doing for the games module which is always a bonus. We also got to have a play with some mediascapes (in a ‘here’s one we made earlier’ blue peter stylee) out in Queens Square in Bristol…it was freezing and we managed to find loads of animal noises (it was a mediascape about animals!) but was good to have a go! All in all it proved to be a very interesting day and certainly sparked off some ideas. It has helped me with my ideas for the space module and can also reinforce some key issues with the games module…well worth the trip out!

During my meeting with Chris regarding my space project there were some interesting ideas bounded about. For the project I would like to produce something based around the cycles I defined. There was some interesting points about Greenfield and Brownfield, the idea all space started out as ‘untouched’ land such as agricultural or ‘green’ land and slowly through cycles has evolved into brownfield or previously developed land which has been left to decay and therefore is ripe to be entered into another cycle. There is the archaeological quality to the cycles that could be manifested in many ways, either by using GPS tagging such as Mediascape to show the physical transformation of the space, almost like a historical TomTom where you could walk old routes and pathways through present day architecture and be faced by walls or obstructions. There is also an interesting project by ex-DAT/MLA student Chris O’Shea who produced a piece that mapped how many people walked through a specified route on a 3D plane by forming ‘canyons’ in the plane. I’m not very good at explaining things so its best if you see it for yourself here.

Other links to consider:
Cyber Geography

You can plot the transformation of the space in a very distinct cycle denoted by the diagrams below. There is a very clear cycle that relates to Foucault’s ‘Dispositif’ model of space. Foucault uses 3 points to explore complex situations:
1 - Establish and ‘emergency’ or ’situation’
2 - Establish ‘rules’, ‘plan’ or ’strategy’
3 - Develop a ‘pattern’
These can be mapped to the cycles I have demonstrated below in that the ’situation’ is the decay or lack of use of the space, the ‘rules’ are the plans for the redevelopment and the ‘pattern’ is the cycle itself which restarts itself.

The first cycle shows the transformation from 1900’s Drake Circus to mid 70’s Drake Circus shopping center. This shows two steps of decay, one accidental during the blitz and one to make way for the redevelopment.

The second cycle shows the transfromation from mid 70’s Drake Circus to the Drake Circus Shopping centre we have today. This cycle show two different types of decay where the structure was left for a period of time to naturally decay, unused. Then the second decay is due to the second redevelopment into the new Drake Circus.