Shared Encounters

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About Shared Encounters

A workshop at CHI 2007, San Jose on 29th April 2007.

The city is characterised by encounters, ranging from those that are fleeting and ephemeral to more enduring and grounded exchanges. Increasingly such encounters are experienced through new mobile and wireless technologies, which enable interactions which are freed from fixed locations and settings. Such locative technologies are structured around multiple invisible networks overlaying physical space. These networks are mapped against face-to-face social networks, where multiple communities carry out their activities.

However since technologies have enabled social networks to exist independent of the physical setting, diverse communities have emerged who are no longer connected by spatial common settings. Consequently such groups are spatially fragmented and isolated from one another, as disparate on and off-line communities carry out their isolated activities. This is particularly marked in urban public space, formerly places of friendly encounters between strangers and of chance meetings, such that physical spaces lack a sense of unity or familiarity. Mobile and locative technologies such as Bluetooth, WiFi and 3G mobile enable situated interactions but they are mostly used for one-to-one and remote encounters between people who are known each other.

This workshop will explore the potential of such technologies for re-connecting the disjointed social networks, and for enabling shared encounters that reinforce community structures. In particular it will investigate how such technologies can be appropriated for shared interactions that can occur spontaneously and playfully and in so doing re-inhabit the social networks of the city.

NOTE: Please see the post on geotagging photos above

http://www.mediacityproject.com/.shared-encounters