5 Points of Interest

1. One point that I found very interesting was the idea that sensory ethnography exists on two levels; the body and the mind. This correlates to what we are doing because when we are walking down Lancaster there are certain things that we take pictures of simply because we like the way they look, whereas other things that we have captured have been for more theoretical or spiritual reasons.
2. The importance of “place” in ethnography was another point I found interesting. This idea goes along with the different demographics on either side of 38^th street as described by Joe in class.
3. The point that was made about how locative media has helped emphasize the fact that digital content is placeless relates to what we are planning to do with our final project. By taking pictures and associating stories and other such things with them it is making these images more than just pictures but is giving them that sense of being an actual place not just simply a picture.
4. I found the idea of social authoring to be very interesting because that is basically what we are doing with this project. We are taking an urban environment that many people would just look at as a bunch of building and are giving them character and personality through our work and insights.
5. I was really drawn to the focus on mobile devices used to create locative media because that is what I have been exclusively using to document and research. With the creation of smart phones, I can now take pictures as well as take audio clips all with just my phone. I don’t need a camera to do these things anymore which makes it really convenient that I can do these kinds of things with something that I carry around on my all the time anyway. It saves money as well as frustration for not having to need extra equipment to do a project like ours.