Abstract
In an age of proliferation of both personal and public digital technology and media devices, Scott McQuire’s book, Geomedia: Networked Cities and the Future of Public Space, provides an important contribution to the ongoing discussions and rethinking of the ways in which the development of new geolocated media and the preponderance of available data interplay with the evolution of urban space and our interactions with it. Geomedia’s main inquiry seeks to expand current understandings at the intersection of urban life, digital technology and cultural practices, recognizing the binary of physical versus virtual, but rather than seeking to rupture this pre-ordained framework, finds ways to negotiate real, everyday cultural practices within this paradigm. For McQuire, geomedia encompasses the following attributes: (1) the convergence of media, (2) the ubiquity of digital devices and platforms, (3) location-based or global positioning system (GPS) capabilities and (4) real-time feedback. As such, geomedia not only plays an important role in how urban spaces are reconfigured but also brings up questions about maintaining a democratic spirit through the diverse imaginings of public spaces. Throughout five chapters and an introduction, McQuire connects us wonderfully to historical context, in both scholarly and practical terms (in terms of the sort of technologies available at the time), to situate his discussion around how today’s digital technologies intersect with urban spaces. He elegantly ties in prior work on cityscapes and current discourse around geolocated media, supporting his argument around the rethinking of media in public spaces with three interesting case studies.
The first chapter, ‘Transforming Media and Public Space’, discusses the previous work of scholars who talk about the importance of citizens’ rights to a city to preserve a democratic society. A theme that emerges from prior research and ruminations about cities is the importance of serendipitous encounters (p. 34), which increases contact with a wide range of diverse people, wherein diversity is something to be enjoyed, not feared. This point is one of the most poignant he makes throughout the book, particularly with the increased divisiveness between and isolation of different social groups in today’s global political climate. This chapter also tackles the implications of ‘smart cities’ that use data to ‘provide “insights” into urban mobility, resource use and the like’ (p. 37), problematizing the assumption of the neutrality of data, the fact that much of the drive to develop smart cities stems from commercialized vendors and technological corporations, the proprietary nature of data analytics (analysing raw data about the city tends to be inaccessible to the average individual, somewhat undermining the utopic vision for data to empower citizens), and the priority of the vision of cities as rooted in a technology-driven agenda rather than making space for alternate visions of urban public spaces.
The second chapter, ‘Googling the City’, uses Google Street View to interrogate the reconfiguration and re-imaging of public space through digital image data archiving. Google Street View is the latest in a long tradition of visualizing urban space, and relies heavily on the ability of Google, as a corporation, to expend the resources to create the series of non-linear images that comprise Street View. McQuire recognizes the concern around privacy, the illusion of data neutrality on the Street View platform, potential traceability of individuals through using Google Street View and the appropriation of images of public space into private value. The popularity of Google Street View also shifts towards a post-national urban imaginary, wherein information and archives are maintained by a global organization rather than by the state. Moreover, geolocation services’ over-curation of public experiences potentially detracts from the serendipitous ‘encounters with diverse others as critical to learning the social skills capable of sustaining contemporary urban life’ (p. 89), thereby shifting conceptions of online versus offline spaces.
The third chapter, ‘Participatory Public Space’, tackles the ways in which participation has been at the forefront of art installations designed to encourage ‘public encounters in which experimental digital interfaces are deployed to stimulate curiosity toward, and preparedness to engage with, others’ (p. 121). His examples of participatory art installations include Solar Equation, a scaled replication of the sun with which the public can interact through the use of digital devices to make little changes to the art project, for which user agency is present but limited. The idea behind participatory art as a way for a variety of different interactions and engagements with public spaces is framed in the debate between a top-down imposition of individual behaviours and a bottom-up emergence of the diversity of experiences within the said space.
The fourth chapter, ‘Urban Screens and Urban Media Events’, addresses the ways in which screens are physically present and used in an urban landscape, considering how the presence of screens throughout the city, both through art installations and the presence of media events (like the FIFA World Cup, memorial services, or statements by public officials), works to create serendipitous interactions between people and between consumers and media, and enabling a sense of ‘liveness’ (p. 137) and collective experiencing through live broadcasting. Similar to the projects discussed in Chapter 3, McQuire discusses the ways in which media events and artworks can be planned and executed to mediate transnational public conversations through the project Come Join Me Mr Orwell, allowing mobile phone users to participate in a mapping project through SMS (SMS_Origins), or enabling collaborative remote public performances (Hello), while simultaneously recognizing the high cost of installing large screens and the importance of location.
Chapter 5, ‘Recomposing Public Space’, considers geomedia at the nexus of the negotiation of power between individual agency, state governance and algorithmic design. McQuire reiterates that integration of geomedia into everyday life ‘has become an important site for the invention of new practices of communication, collectivity, and commonality’ (p. 162), reconfiguring both public space and an individual’s position and experience within it, in which new logics and practices of being together, of interacting, of discovery and of presence become possible.
As with much of the research around geolocated media and digital technology, there is much more to be done, and McQuire’s research presents some useful openings for further inquiry. As mobile technology becomes more ubiquitous, current discussion around the combination of physical space and digital imaginings through, for example, games and other mobile applications that use augmented reality would pair nicely with an extension of the discussion around geomedia. The popularity of geolocated games like Pokémon Go and virtual art projects created through the gameplay of Ingress are ripe for analysis with McQuire’s geomedia perspective. Moreover, it would be a productive endeavour to address geomedia and public spaces in the context of the increasing gentrification that is happening in major urban centres around the world. There are points within the book itself that are found wanting for a deeper discussion around class, socioeconomic status, and perhaps identity politics, particularly as McQuire’s case studies centre around projects that emerge from efforts of social institutions – the government, art galleries, tech companies, media corporations and so on – imposing certain (aspirationally beneficial) logics to experiencing urban public spaces. While these institutions enable the diverse interactions, how much of their presentation of data and/or media reinforce some of the social power dynamics that these projects seek to rupture? While McQuire makes the excellent point that a total participatory bottom-up approach in designing the city often leads nowhere and that the institutional framing and enabling of participatory experiences amplifies the impact of geomedia, the question of who participates can be delved into deeper.
Overall, McQuire’s work is a fantastic starting point in thinking about how geographically located media around the city starts to shift, how citizens interact both with each other and the city itself, as well as opening up space for a diverse range of voices, while balancing concerns around privacy and myths of data neutrality. This book provides a solid platform upon which future inquiries around geomedia may emerge.