PORTAGE: The Canadian Mobile Experience
2006-present
Principal Investigators, Paula Gardner and Geoffrey Shea
Funded by Canadian Heritage
http://www.mobilelab.ca/portage/

How can users of a public urban space engage in a multi-sensory, multimedia outdoor experience?

PORTAGE is transforming John Street, in the heart of Toronto’s entertainment shopping district, into a Broad Locative Environment (BLE) – a space that will allow visitors to engage with outdoor multimedia installations and other mobile users.

Users will be able to navigate from Grange Park down to John Street through a GPS and wifi-enabled way-finding system. Along the way they will interact with installed musical sculptures, create and share interactive audio dub components, trigger swarms of cicadas residing in city trees and surveil their own image, via public camera surveillance, in a past historical John St moment or in a classic Canadian film clip.

This BLE installation Portage will investigate how cultural content delivery is made possible by emerging multi-capability mobile devices. These devices include cell phones, handhelds and PDAs with WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and GSM access. Portage will also examine the processes by which these technologies can be used in conjunction with each other and with environmental sensors and displays to move the mobile experience ‘beyond the phone’ and to create an interactive and immersive environment. How can users of a public urban space engage in a multi-sensory, multimedia outdoor experience?

Interim Activity Report: May 11, 2007
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PORTAGE_100507_pt1.pdf

Interim Activity Report: May 11, 2007 (part 2)
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PORTAGE_100507_pt2.pdf

Interim Activity Report: August 2007
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PORTAGEinterim090807Final1.pdf

Interim Activity Report: August 2007 (part 2)
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PORTAGEinterim090807Final2.pdf

PORTAGE Logs: September, 2007
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/appendix 1_PORTAGE LOGS.pdf

Amendments to Activity Report: September 2007
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PORTAGE_amendments.pdf

Gantt Chart
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/GanttChart-updated.pdf

Alter Audio Project, of the Mobile Digital Commons Network
2005-2007
Paula Gardner and Geoffre Shea, Project Leads
(MDCN Co-PI’s Sara Diamond and Michael Longford)
Funded by Canadian Heritage
http://www.mobilenation.ca/mdcn/alteraudio/

How can users of a public urban space engage in a multi-sensory, multimedia outdoor experience?The Alter Audio Project was a project of the MDCN network of social scientists, artists, designers and engineers crossing three sites (OCAD, Concordia University and Banff Center for the Arts) who together researched and created a range of mobile experiences in urban and mountain parks. (http://www.mobilelab.ca/mdcn/)

Alter Audio contains a variety of mobile musical experiences that allow users to engage creatively in sound and music composition in a range of park environments. Users can engage in composition over time or in a live musical collaboration. The project investigates a range of methodological, theoretical, and technological questions.

It seeks to create new methods of interaction between designers and engineers, crafts new methods matching iterative design to rapid prototyping, investigates the role of mobile media in generating new forms of social interaction in public spaces, and queries user desires for individual versus social interaction, and analogue versus digital and mobile experiences.

The Alter Audio project inquires into how different people find varied meaning and environmental relevance in a range of sounds - music, ambient, effects, etc. As well, the project tests how different individuals will combine sounds in response to the technical organization of the project, in response to working as individuals or as team members, and in projects that are live versus over time. Finally, the project queries how different users respond to high and low-end mobile devices and platforms.

The Alter Audio website includes analysis and video and audio experiences, including:

Phone Noir

Phone Noir is a mobile poetry experience presented at the Words Aloud! Spoken Word Festival, November, 2006. Written and performed by Paula Gardner and Geoffrey Shea, additional sound by John Pavicic, engineered by Jagmit Singh (Bluetooth) and Ken Leung (GPS).

In this mobile experience, users are transported to a Casablanca-inspired railway environment, peppered with random noir-like phrases that are isolated or overlap depending on the user’s movement through a determined space. An indoor iteration uses Bluetooth beacons and this outdoor version relies on GPS coordinates.
http://mobilelab.ca/alteraudio/document.html

Audio Experience Designs

http://mobilelab.ca/alteraudio/document.html

Analysis

Alter Audio Treatment
Paula Gardner
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-Alter_Audio_Treatment.pdf

Testing Methodology: Overview Alter Audio
MDCN Project, July 2006
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-Alter_Audio_User_Testing_Methodology.pdf

Alter Audio: Mobile and Locative Sound Experiences
Paula Gardner, Geoffrey Shea
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-Alter_Audio--Mobile_and_Locative_Sound_Experiences.pdf

Alter Audio MDCN Development Report Banff, March 13, 2006
Paula Gardner, Geoffrey Shea, David Gautier, Nevena Niagolova, Rupinder Deol, Maria Frangos
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-AlterAud_Development_Report.pdf

Scramble: Co-Located, Real-Time, Locative Word Game
Geoffrey Shea, Paula Gardner, David McIntosh, Daviid Gauthier, Ken Leung, Jenny Ziemianin, Peter Todd
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-scramble.pdf

Notes, Findings From Pre-Test, Tracklines Testing October 1, 2006, Banff
Paula Gardner
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-Tracklines_test_oct_2006.pdf

Tracklines Testing Methodology: Overview
Paula Gardner
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/PGardner-Tracklines_User_Testing_Protocols.pdf

Biomapping: mobile interventions in self-computation and spatial aesthetics
Paula Gardner
http://www.paulagardner.ca/docs/Pgardner-Biomapping summary.doc
Link: http://www.mobilelab.ca/biomapping