photo technologies & interspaces seminar CALL
¾ day event in Lancaster (UK), 25th April 2008
SYNOPSIS
The term ‘interspace’ has been used to refer to the period which occurs between two separate but related events which are specifically located in space and time (Hulme, 2004). This can refer to either the travel time between two events e.g. home and work in the morning, or between the arrangement of a meeting (e.g. occurring on a Wednesday) and the meeting itself (e.g. occurring on the following Friday).
Hulme & Truch (2004)
This seminar will explore the use of photo technologies for sustaining ‘awayness’ and ‘betweeness’ – being away from home, being between home and work, being away from family, being between home and a ‘third place’ (Oldenberg, 1989). We are interested in the use of existing and novel photo technologies by people to perform “boundary work” (Laurier, 2002:53) and ‘contact work’. These people could be away or between due to distance, commitments to work, cultural differences, language difference, family break-up etc., for either short periods of time (e.g. through work trips overseas) or on a more permanent basis (e.g. through relocation to another country). The aim of this seminar is to investigate how people create ‘spaces’, ‘communication zones’ (Nardi et al., 2000), ‘interspaces’ (Hulme, 2004) and perform ‘contact work’ to handle being ‘between’ and ‘away’, the character of such work in terms of time, geographical ‘stretch’, communication media, relationships to co-present contact as well as the nature of the ties they support to others (e.g. many weak ties, few strong ties).
We can argue that people in these situations, like mobile workers are accomplishing ‘a region’ (Laurier, 2002) that is neither reliant on co-location nor a shared perception of time. We wish to explore the everyday detail of how these regions are accomplished through particular work (e.g. contact work) not only throughout single days but over the weeks and months, locations, media and different people involved, the particular involvement and awareness of other ‘members’ in this work, and what the accomplishment pivots around (e.g. people, places, events). For example a certain kind of contact work (e.g. sending digital photos via email) may be short-lived but recurring, involve close family members in a particular household and pivot around one person in the family and be a ‘region’ that is managed longitudinally.
Too many analyses of this kind of ‘work’ have ignored its temporal evolution (e.g. membership and changing practices over time), its tethering to the physical world (e.g. co-presence and face-to-face communication) and the barriers to both involvement and disengagement. The social worlds (Strauss, 1978) engaged in this work change, splinter and reform and too often this is ignored in the way the work is reported and studied. How do membership and relationships change over time (e.g. the ratio of strong to weak ties) and how is this influenced by other factors such as physical movement, relocation etc? What happens to the social world when a substantial life change occurs such as with a new job, divorce, a death in the family? How do people join and, as important, how do they leave? Such concerns are not trivial as they have direct bearing on the everyday practices of communication as well as longer-term concerns such as service provision (by a photo-sharing service such as Flickr for example), personal data management (of old messages, uploads etc). Thus this seminar’s concern is not only with photo practices and photo technologies but also appropriate policies governing photo data management.
Bruce Chatwin in “Songlines” (1987) describes how Australian aboriginals couple traditional songs and stories with places to the extent that they can be used to navigate the continent. He also makes a somewhat surprising suggestion to those of us who talk of the need for local ‘roots’ and ‘community’: that a singularly located home, garden, car and local club membership are all a relatively recent phenomenon in human history and that we are more nomadic by Nature than we admit. We have learned to tame this nomadic Nature as we have subdued (and, at times, destroyed) our environment through new technologies. Chatwin goes further and suggests we can actually accomplish ourselves through moving. This centrality of different forms of mobility (e.g. “physical travel”, “imaginative travel” and “communicative travel” (Urry, 2003)) to people’s lives is borne out, at least to some extent, by Larsen et al’s (2006) recent empirical study of working people’s mobility in the Northwest of England. For example, they describe how 24 informants ranging from architects to porters, lived a mean of 395 km from the most important people in their lives and a mean of 693 km from close family members. Thus the suggestion is that “network capital” (Larsen et al., 2006:4) (strong personal ties in particular) and meaningful relationships persist despite a ‘mobile’ lifestyle and geographically dispersed social networks. For example, people in the study sustained regular contact telephone contact (at least 1 phone call every 10 days on average) with people living over 250 km away. Such findings indeed suggest that we are not ‘bowling alone’ (Putnam, 2000) and in the grip of some form of moral decay because of crumbling local communities and an ensuing decline in personal values. The suggestion instead is that we are bowling differently or not bowling at all.
We regard ‘network capital’ as emerging from social networks, both ‘lived’ physically and digitally and sustained across time and distance through often quite simple technologies such as the telephone, SMS texting, email and social networking tools. It is only by examining the rich texture of the totality of the interactions supported by these ‘simple’ technologies that we get real insights into the nature of people’s ‘network capital’ today. Thus we believe that technology-oriented studies are all important in this regard: Taylor and Harper’s (2003) examination of teen SMS use as a form of ‘gift gifting’ (Maus, 1997), reflecting “…deeply rooted needs in…social relationships, needs that have to do with systems of reciprocity and social solidarity” (Taylor and Harper, 2003:268) ; Nardi et al’s (2000) study of Instant Messaging in the workplace as a form of ‘outeraction’ or ‘reaching out’; Ling’s and Yttri’s (2002) study of teen texting supporting ad hoc coordination on the move; and Grinter and Eldridge’s studies (2001, 2003), again of teen texting, showing the content and character of text ‘conversations’ and how these are intermingled with other media. These studies show that simple, text-based technologies (often asynchronous) interwoven with (often synchronous) media such as voice services and face-to-face communication support strong ties in social groups and act as a form of currency and means of old-fashioned human give and take. What these kind of studies lack is a more longitudinal perspective and placing these behaviours in the context of ‘network capital’, ongoing life (such as the accomplishment of family) as well as the “pre-assembled parts” and ongoing patterns of “assembling work” (Laurier, 2002:48) performed through both digital and non-digital technologies and media.
However, our interest extends beyond only practices with technologies currently available in the marketplace that have already been ‘made ordinary’. What do new and less studied, ‘simple’ technologies offer with regard to the network capital sustained by ‘contact work’? Thus our interest in this seminar is both current, well-known, or ‘mundane technologies’ (Graham and Rouncefield, 2007) and new technological developments, particularly in the personal technologies (e.g. mobile phones, games) and Web 2.0 domains (e.g. blogging, RSS feeds). We are interested both in empirical studies of particular ‘interspaces’ – their character, evolution, purpose – and the possibilities offered by new technologies to sustain, transform or remove the need for them.
The seminar will mainly comprise invited talks with accompanying abstracts. We aim to have 2-3 longer presentations addressing the seminar themes and 5-7 shorter presentations. The following are appropriate submissions for the seminar:
- Empirical studies of families;
- Proposals for new designs/technologies;
- New methods and approaches;
- Proposals the study of particular interspaces.
REQUIREMENTS
If you wish you give a short presentation at the seminar please submit an abstract for a 15 minute presentation that allows 5-10 minutes for questions and discussion. The abstract should be no longer than 1 page in length and conform with the ACM SIG proceedings format. Please submit abstracts to Connor Graham: c.graham [at] lancaster.ac.uk.
The abstract should clearly describe the nature of the work to be discussed, the kind of submission it is (e.g. proposal for new design) and how the work relates to the seminar themes. At the end of the abstract, please include points for discussion for the end of the presentation and any references participants should read before the seminar (3-4 will be sufficient). The abstracts and a reference list will be made available to all participants before the seminar. The seminar is free. Refreshments will be provided. Participants are welcome to stay for an informal dinner after the seminar event.
KEY DATES
| Abstracts for talks due: | 14th April 2008 2400 (GMT) to c.graham [at] lancaster.ac.uk |
| Feedback: | 16th April 2008 |
| Abstracts available: | 21st April 2008 |
| Seminar | 25th April 2008 |
REGISTRATION COSTS
This is a free seminar. Potential participants will either be invited or should contact Connor Graham (c.graham [at] lancaster.ac.uk) if they wish to attend. Attendance will be capped at 12-15 participants.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This half day seminar is supported by Mark Rouncefield's European Microsoft Research Fellowship “Social Interaction and Mundane Technologies” and is responding to the proliferation and developing constellations of ‘social’ and ‘mundane’ technologies in people’s everyday lives and the possibilities for new technologies to be developed responding to these constellations. These technologies are often simple, minimalist and ‘loose’ and yet support richly layered social interactions that are sustained and develop across time, place, and culture.
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