INCLUSIVA-NET: Digital Networks and Physical Space :: Open Call - Deadline: January 30, 2008 :: The purpose of this open participation meeting is to explore the relationship between digital networks and physical space in the context of the increasingly widespread use of portable technology and Web applications in connection with the production and management of geographic information.

In this meeting, the impact of these devices and platforms on the development of new dynamics and experiences of communicative interaction will be analyzed from the perspective of a broad range of fields including art, anthropology, journalism, politics, sociology, and urban development.

Core topics suggested for this meeting are:

-New social habits on Web 2.0 related to physical space and geo-localization. The formation of participatory media contents based on spatial annotation: georeferencing and geotagging. Artistic and critical analysis proposals related to these fields.

-The development of geographic information systems in Web circles.

Technological and social foundations of the emerging Geospatial Web and Geosemantic Web.

-The design of alternative “geobrowsers” to use and manage geospatial data and geotagged information.

- Bases of the local Web 2.0. “Urban markup” proposals on social networks.

- Sharing collective, localized memories. Applications in the field of education.

-The evolution of open source types of cartographic and mapping tools, and of geosoftware production communities.

-Blogs referring to contextual, specific places and areas (place blogging) and hyperlocal journalism. Socializing and critical potentials in the development of hyperlocal networks.

-Projects for mobile networks and wireless local networks. Augmented reality projects based on network environments and their potential for developing a new type of participatory digital urban development.

-Locative media and network systems. Locative art and locative gaming projects related to collaborative forms and social interaction via the Web or through other interconnected networks.

(Important note: In addition to the above mentioned core topics, other work or research will be considered for inclusion in the meeting related to other areas proposed by the artists and/or researchers, provided that those proposals contribute to the overall theme of this meeting.)

Call: There are two ways to participate in the meeting (not mutually exclusive):

- Presenting a project to develop within the production workshop. [ver convocatoria]
- Sending a paper for its public presentation during the meeting. [ver convocatoria]

Introductory text by Juan Martmn Prada (director of the Inclusiva-net plattform)

The relationship between digital and physical spaces is becoming increasingly important in the development of new technological applications.

Just as several years ago, portable communication systems like mobile phones and electronic organizers began to incorporate visual tools such as photographic and video cameras, nowadays they also include GPS devices that provide geo-localization coordinates.

Meanwhile, on the Internet, huge breakthroughs are occurring in the development of applications related to geographic information systems; that is, systems that manage geographically referenced information using data bases usually associated to digital maps.
That is why geotagging activities have become increasingly common on Web 2.0; that is, assigning spatial coordinates or physical location data to certain files, such as georeferencing photographs on platforms including Flickr, Mappr, and Google Earth, or assigning geographic identifiers to texts and phrases, even video and audio documents. The popularization of “annotating the world” activities is unquestionably one of the key processes in the evolution of the current Web toward the formation of what many people are already calling the geospatial web. Widespread use is being made of the
term: “Earth as Universal Desktop”.

Clearly, the desire to know more about the geographic spaces around us, the place where we live or that we are travelling through, as well as the people who live there or travel through them has found one of its most active development channels in the participatory technologies that characterize social networks, laying the foundations for what we could call “the local Web 2.0″. Some of the best possible examples of this drive to re-territorialize that comprises a large part of current online dynamics are the open, communicative practices focused on the lived experience of a place that are being carried out at present in hyperlocal journalism and place blogging (a term commonly used to refer to blogs centred on events, news, and people in a specific local area such as a neighbourhood or a small town). The recent addition of some aggregators and search engines on placeblogs are proof of the growing importance of this form of relationship and the complementary nature of the communicative space on networks and the physical space we inhabit.

Artistic and experimental practices linked to what in 2003 began to be called “locative media” demonstrate an intensely critical reaction to the globalizing dislocation and the loss of any geographic or political context, which has long been associated with the experience of connecting to the Internet. Using all kinds of mobile and wireless technologies and computer localization devices, many artistic manifestations today are attempting to reconfigure the physical spatial contexts of communication and interaction among people.

Many artistic proposals use mapping, geo-annotation, localization, spatial mobility, or mixed reality games strategies to call for a new convergence between the digital space of networks and the actual territory. They are always dependent on specific social and geographic contexts and serve as the first glimpse of what we might call a new participatory digital type of urban development.