people knowing [sampling the city]
"The life of our city is rich in poetic and marvelous subjects. We are enveloped and steeped as though in an atmosphere of the marvelous; but we do not notice it" -Charles Baudelaire
Sampling the city is the study of a "non-place" (a physical and a virtual) with the purpose of collecting information about the people that inhabit that space and the space itself.
Virtual Space: Facebook and Blip.fm
My exploration of the Virtual Space started on my interest in the types of interaction that take place in Facebook. Not too long ago, I lost a close friend that had a Facebook account. Since he's been dead, all the people that knew him still visit this space that is no longer inhabited by his living presence but inhabited by the living through his death. The whole idea of using a virtual space as some kind of remembrance space for my friend seemed really interesting to me, unfortunately the activity in the page was not dynamic enough for me to run samples and tests. So I decided to look for a place where users could be stimulated by any kind of test I'd place so I went to Blip.fm. Blip has the same system as twitter but instead of "tweeting" messages you "blip" music (along with any message you want to post). People are able to give props, recommendations and replies to other "dj's" (they are not called users) as you build your own music library and collection of favorite dj's. How did I provide tools to understand this space better? I created a list of words that are often used in songs and that people relate to because of the emotional content. The probe consisted on asking the dj's to blip whatever song came to mind when they read the following: love, hate, wish, believe, want, lie, hope, betray, collect and kill. The words that people answered to was love and kill. The rest were not replied at all.
Love It was surprising to see that the songs people thought of love did not say the word love directly but talked about the feeling of love or doing actions that we relate to love, like people that amaze us or things that overwhelm our world.
Kill It was interesting to find that the songs people related to kill did not have to do with the action of killing, but more used as a slang to say something is super cool or as a figure of speech such as "dress to kill". No user related the word to a song that was violent or that had anything to do with death.
Physical Space: Interesting Parking Lot and West Hollywood Hotel
I chose to sample a parking lot I found in Pasadena, which looked absolutely lovely and interesting to me. Not only it had an odd distribution for a parking lot but the spaces were numbered with this huge hand painted numbers on the pavement. These numbers matched the mailboxes in the apartments that surrounded the lot which featured a series of whole and half numbers mixed altogether. Although this place seemed to have a lot to offer, the interest quality of the space took away from what could be discovered about the people that park their cars there.
So I decided to try another parking lot that was much more dull and boring and tried to figure out what the cars said about their owners and the people that worked there. Unfortunately some people that worked there saw me as a threat or "suspicious" and made me erase all the pictures I had taken.
I went to get a hotel room. The most interesting thing about the hotel room was the little details: It seemed pretty groomed from the outside and even at a single glance from the inside, but as I looked closer and starting documenting the place I realized that there was so much dust accumulated in specific areas and objects in the room such as the window, the alarm clock and the doorway. So I followed the dust. The dust told me about how often people open windows, use the clock, pick up the remote control and even use certain things in the room. It also told me about what a lousy cleaning method they have.
What I learned the most from this exercise that seemed so absurd and confusing to me, was to look in a different way into the non-apparent, small details and things we tend to overlook that can say so much about a space and people- just like dust.
Instructors: Ben Hooker/Sean Donahue
Sampling the city is the study of a "non-place" (a physical and a virtual) with the purpose of collecting information about the people that inhabit that space and the space itself.
Virtual Space: Facebook and Blip.fm
My exploration of the Virtual Space started on my interest in the types of interaction that take place in Facebook. Not too long ago, I lost a close friend that had a Facebook account. Since he's been dead, all the people that knew him still visit this space that is no longer inhabited by his living presence but inhabited by the living through his death. The whole idea of using a virtual space as some kind of remembrance space for my friend seemed really interesting to me, unfortunately the activity in the page was not dynamic enough for me to run samples and tests. So I decided to look for a place where users could be stimulated by any kind of test I'd place so I went to Blip.fm. Blip has the same system as twitter but instead of "tweeting" messages you "blip" music (along with any message you want to post). People are able to give props, recommendations and replies to other "dj's" (they are not called users) as you build your own music library and collection of favorite dj's. How did I provide tools to understand this space better? I created a list of words that are often used in songs and that people relate to because of the emotional content. The probe consisted on asking the dj's to blip whatever song came to mind when they read the following: love, hate, wish, believe, want, lie, hope, betray, collect and kill. The words that people answered to was love and kill. The rest were not replied at all.
Love It was surprising to see that the songs people thought of love did not say the word love directly but talked about the feeling of love or doing actions that we relate to love, like people that amaze us or things that overwhelm our world.
Kill It was interesting to find that the songs people related to kill did not have to do with the action of killing, but more used as a slang to say something is super cool or as a figure of speech such as "dress to kill". No user related the word to a song that was violent or that had anything to do with death.
Physical Space: Interesting Parking Lot and West Hollywood Hotel
I chose to sample a parking lot I found in Pasadena, which looked absolutely lovely and interesting to me. Not only it had an odd distribution for a parking lot but the spaces were numbered with this huge hand painted numbers on the pavement. These numbers matched the mailboxes in the apartments that surrounded the lot which featured a series of whole and half numbers mixed altogether. Although this place seemed to have a lot to offer, the interest quality of the space took away from what could be discovered about the people that park their cars there.
So I decided to try another parking lot that was much more dull and boring and tried to figure out what the cars said about their owners and the people that worked there. Unfortunately some people that worked there saw me as a threat or "suspicious" and made me erase all the pictures I had taken.
I went to get a hotel room. The most interesting thing about the hotel room was the little details: It seemed pretty groomed from the outside and even at a single glance from the inside, but as I looked closer and starting documenting the place I realized that there was so much dust accumulated in specific areas and objects in the room such as the window, the alarm clock and the doorway. So I followed the dust. The dust told me about how often people open windows, use the clock, pick up the remote control and even use certain things in the room. It also told me about what a lousy cleaning method they have.
What I learned the most from this exercise that seemed so absurd and confusing to me, was to look in a different way into the non-apparent, small details and things we tend to overlook that can say so much about a space and people- just like dust.
Instructors: Ben Hooker/Sean Donahue