Workshop Introduction
Audio-based content, location and mobile technologies can offer a multitude of interactional possibilities when combined in innovative and creative ways. It is important not to underestimate impact of the interplay between location, place and sound. Even if intangible and ephemeral, sounds impact upon the way in which we experience the built as well as the natural world. As technology offers us the opportunity to augment and access the world, mobile technologies offer us the opportunity to interact while moving though the world.
The goal of the workshop is to explore the possibilities, issues, challenges and the application of methods for understanding, creating meaning and using audio content, for the users of mobile devices. Questions that we might propose are: How do we make and locate audio (a non-tangible media) in order that mobile users can have a meaningful experience in physical space? How do they find and locate such experiences? How can we make places that have meaning and are meaningful? And are there ways that we can exploit a users mobility and time in a space that might have an impact upon their experience? Can these be used in a heritage-based environment, can we create a sonic memory-scape for friends and family and do different types of mobile listening engender different types of consumption i.e. focused, meditative, disruptive, personal and collaborative. The workshop is part of Mobile HCI 2016
Some of the questions that we have asked above will provide a platform in order to start discussions and to engage the group. We envisage that as the workshop progresses that other themes will emerge and that these will form part of the workshop.
As part of the workshop we will give the participants the chance to both bring their own tech and to engage with some of the systems and tools that we are currently researching. The workshop should be an interactive experience and the participants will be able to use and create ideas based on their own experiences. In order to get the participants to engage with some of the issues that we have raised we will encourage participants to leave the workshop space and explore the surroundings in order to capture materials that can later be used. Technologies for e.g. wide spatial recording and similar tools will be brought to the workshop.
For more info email: [email protected]
Images: Lord Davies private collection and Treuddyn Urdd
Acknowledgements:
This workshop would like to acknowledge the following projects: EPSRC - Fusing Semantic and Audio Technologies for Intelligent Music Production, Consumption (EP/L019981/1); Living with Digital Ubiquity (EP/M000877/1) and the Social Innovation Group - Personal Data and Trust Network.
We would like to encourage workshop participants to think about submitting their future work to Personal and Ubiquitous Computing
