:: Graffiti and mobile phones - (and not the Palm hand-writing kind) ::
Sounds like a strange topic I confess, but I started looking into Graffiti culture for several reasons. Firstly I was just curious about this sub-culture and what the various spray-sprawls ("bombs") meant, and the strange signs ("tags"). Secondly, I was brain-storming ideas for mobile applications based on youth culture, trying to find ideas and inspiration, which I managed to do aplenty. Thirdly, I was approached to act as a consultant on an Internet project for hop-hop clothing - and graffiti has its roots in this culture.
What immediately intrigued me was the global reach of the graffiti culture, made all the more global by the sharing of "pieces" on the net (see links from my graffiti mind-map), with galleries from many cities showing the "bombing" activities of different "crews". It immediately became clear that picture-messaging and moblogging is bound to play a role in recording the illegal activities of many a "writer" or "tagger".
Combine this with location-aware devices and all kinds of crazy ideas begin to surface. Of course, it gives a whole new meaning to the term "air graffiti" or "virtual graffiti", referred to as geospatial notation at O'Reilly's Emerging Technologies conference. This is where a user can leave notes hanging in space to be picked up by other passers by who enter the proximity area of the note, whatever the size and shape of that area happens to be. Not quite the same thing, but there seems to be a cultural link that may result in some interesting youth applications arising from the intersection of these two ideas. No reason why pictures can't be left hanging is space as well as sound and text. It has always been my view - and something I preach in my courses - that new applications will arise from youth street culture once they figure out what's possible....let's wait and see.
1:31:27 PM 
|
