Augmenting Social Environments
Real-time data in public spaces
James CochraneMasterarbeit, 2011
Interface Cultures Social interaction is a sustained presence in all societies throughout history; however, the methods of interaction have radically evolved in recent years, aided and augmented by both technological developments and the sense of comfort generated by these developments. In this thesis, I am exploring how embedding social data into architecture and urban environments can affect social behaviour in innately social spaces, in order to create projects that augment physical environments by incorporating digital data into public spaces.
While real-time interactive art in public spaces is a new and expanding field, effectively deploying these works requires a significant amount of prior knowledge. Due to the combination of humans, technology, the built environment, and human-computer interaction, interactive public artworks require great care and cautious design in order to provide a critical and functional takeaway. Currently, there are no formalized standards or guidelines for the execution of art works in public spaces. However, looking through the recent historical development of public spaces, architecture, computer science and interaction design can show how the theories and research projects in the various fields came together to form the basis for the existence of interactive art in public spaces. There are clear links between disparate fields of research, and instances of pre-existing theory reinterpreted for a more appropriately modern contextual use. For media artists, this collection of theory provides design principles, use cases, and point us toward the evolution possibilities of interactive art projects in the augmented spaces of modern urban landscapes. James Cochrane Master Thesis 2011.pdf
