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Editor's Notes

1. Good Morning. My name is Macello Medeiros,. I’m from Brazil. It’s a honour for me to be here. First of all, I ‘d like to thank Dr. Adria for accecpting my proposal and all organizers of Media Ecology Asssociation 2011. This presentation entitled “Locative Communication: Place as a medium?” is based on a project that I created in 2009 and developed further between october and december 2010. I will also present the concept “locative communication - LC” developed in my doctoral thesis “Place of communication: A study of locative communication in the bluetooth zones”.
2. The Educacional Totem Project was implemented during March to May 2011 in Pelourinho, Historic Center of Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. The project consists of available audio files containing narratives about five tourist sites: Terreiro de Jesus, Catedral Basílica, Igreja de São Francisco, Antiga Faculdade de Medicina and Solar Ferrão. These sound narratives are sent to digital mobile devices through three forms: by bluetooth, QR Codes and USB driver. The users can choose which audio narrative (or more than one) they want downloaded from the touch screen digital totem. The purpose is to give the users, e.g. tourists, students, local residents, an experience of imersion surrounding each place. Hearing the sound narratives from a cell phone, the vistors can experience the senses and the meannings of these places. Let’s see a vídeo about the project.
3. Two minutes.
4. This project can be considered a materialization of my doctoral thesis concluded in March 2011. The mayor issue discussed in my thesis was about the relationship between communication and place. The object of study was the Bluetooth zones and my hypothesis was that these experiences using Bluetooth could be considered a different form of communication. This is what I call “Locative Communication”. The relationship between Locative Communication and Locative Media is obvious, but what are the differences? In a few words, locative media refers to the technology or the use of devices and locative communication covers the entire process, including technology (in my point of view). Therefore, I´ve established three aspects of analysis: 1) mobile interface interaction, referring to the kind of interaction (based on THOMPSONS´ Theory), 2) the DMDs as technical mediums and 3) the co-presence of producer, transmitter and receptors of information.
5. Thus, the bluetooth zones gather these three aspects with the use of a cell phone to receive information about a place. This forces users to stay in the zones, in other words, getting the tramsitters and the receptors to interact simultaneously, in same the place and at the same time. Such information may be related to the place like a discount coupon, or in other cases only sending news about specific topics. So, what’s happennig with this relationship between communication and place? These experiences demonstrate that it’s possible to increase the level of relevance to the place. Therefore, It’s happening because the information about the place is being sent to the cell phones which adds meaning, reforcing the sense of belonging. For those visitors in Pelourinho, the experience with bluetooth zones can be compared with a “face to face” interaction, because of the interactive features (With the exception of the use of cell phone to receive the information, in other words, the mobile interface interaction).
6. Now, I will present three other projects that the Locative Communication could be applied to, for universities.
7. Firstly, the project “Bluetooth News Unijorge” that I developed and implemented in 2009 at Unijorge, a private instituition where I teach at the moment. This project consists of available academic information about the institution through a mobile magazine, downloaded by Bluetooth connection to the students’ mobile device. Let’s see a video about it
8. “ One minute”
9. The second project was presented for the same insttuition but It hasn’t been implemented yet. Using the same concept as the project in Pelourinho, this project will be available to provide academic contents such as lessons in video, lessons in audio (such as podcasts), articles and even books…
10. … like the third project entitled “Books On Demand”. This project is only available on e-books found in the University library. It acts as a pathway to the librarys’ collection of books. In this case, the totems will be spread around the Campus, facilitating access to the books at the library.
11. To finish, I’d like to return to my initial question. In view of these projects presented here, can I consider these places as mediums? According to Marshall McLuhan, what is the relationship between place and medium? In the “Understanding Media”, McLuhan talks about the light to explain that “the medium is the message”. It’s interesting as McLuhan refers to the light based on a famous text by Shakespeare, “Romeo and Juliet”, when Romeo perceived the light tresspassing the windows of Juliet’s room. What does this mean? Does it make sense? Well, I can’t answer the question presented in the title yet. Maybe, it will still be my question of study after my doctoral period.