Locative media: From specialized preoccupation to mainstream fascination

Abstract

In 2010, Google generated global controversy when their Google Street View cars recorded data sourced from unsecured WiFi networks. While, in February of the same year, mobile social networking service Foursquare became embroiled in its own controversy when it was revealed that much of the traffic on their site was appearing on Please Rob Me.com, a website which streams updates from various location-based networks that shows when users check-in to a geographical location that is not their home. These controversies are of note not just for the salutary lessons they offer about the risks associated with digital data retention, privacy and security. At a more general level, they are noteworthy in that they testify to the dramatically increased public awareness of, and mainstream (especially press) exposure granted to, location-based media services. Such services are now well established and booming commercially, with consumers accustomed to using sat nav devices in their cars, Google maps on desktop and laptop computers and mobile devices, geoweb and geotagging and other mapping applications, and various apps on iPhones and smartphones that use location technologies. Not only do location-based services ‘comprise the fastest growing sector in web technology businesses’ (Gordon and de Souza e Silva, 2011: 9), questions of location and locationawareness are increasingly central to our contemporary engagements with the internet and mobile media. Indeed, as Gordon and de Souza e Silva (2011: 19) suggest, ‘unlocated information will cease to be the norm’ and location will become a ‘near universal search string for the world’s data’ (2011: 20); or, as McCullough (2006: 26) puts it, information ‘is now coming to you . . . wherever you are’ and ‘is increasingly about where you are’. In this special issue, ‘locative media’ is the term that is used to capture this diverse array of location aware technologies and practices. The term ‘locative media’ (that is, media of communication that are functionally bound to a location) is preferred for the precise reason that it is economical and expansive but also precise. That is to say, it captures a lot in two words while also retaining a sense of the term’s very particular history, which is anchored within the field of new media arts. For instance, various sources trace the origin of the term ‘locative media’ back to Karlis Kalnins, who is said to have first proposed it during the Art þ Communication Festival in Riga,