This project forms part of a (now lengthy) series of creative works and investigations into mobile and locative media I started five years ago. In 2003 I became interested in the idea of using mobile phones as a platform for locative writing. An interface between landscape and text that would use the contextual setting of place to create an immersive fictional environment equal parts literature and walking tour.
In 2004 with the kind support of the Australia Council I did a residency with Advanced Telecommunications Research in Kyoto where I looked at the then somewhat futuristic state of the mobile web in Japan with its decade long gestation using the i-mode system. This history is well documented in the book “Personal, Portable, Pedestrian” edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Misa Matsuda (Mitpress 2005) as are the ethnographic underpinnings behind the Japanese enthusiasm for Keitai and the mobile web. These ideas about the cultural uses handsets can be put to were in my mind when I was commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to produce a locative fiction project using phones set in the Melbourne CBD for a contemporary art survey show simply called 2004. This project “go this way” used the fictional idea of a society of emotional geocaching to site a series of handheld fictions throughout the inner city. It was designed for what were at the time expensive high end handsets (capable of handling the emerging mobile browsers) and I was never happy with this exclusivity which in turn got me thinking about what might be possible with simple (and cheap) SMS.
Video documentation for Go This Way.
Its hard to progress very far in researching texting cultures (for instance) without coming across the example of The Philippines. For reasons to do with the history of traditional communication cultures, the early introduction of SMS at no cost and the role of the mobile in the developing economy of the country, texting is an absolutely central cultural activity. From the role of text in political activism (and the famous coup de text) to extended personal relations, family economies and state governance, The Philipinnes presents a fascinating example for thinking about mobile cultures worldwide. Often called the world capital of texting and routinely topping the global charts in numbers of texts sent per capita, it became clear that visiting Manila to investigate the phenomenon might be fruitful. So armed only with a copy of Txting Selves by Raul Pertierra (De la Salle University Press, Manila 2002) and a contact at Green Papaya Gallery courtesy of my friends at the Asialink Foundation, a two person team of myself and Jes Tyrrell set off with a little HDcam and tripod to talk to whomever we could.
While we seemed to spend most of our time in Manila in taxis navigating the huge metro sprawl we also met some insightful and intelligent commentators on local txt culture, the video files on these pages organised by category and tag are hopefully testament to that. I was inspired in this approach of tagging video and using blogging systems like Wordpress for video by the Video Defunct project by Seth Keen, David Wolf & Keith Deverell at RMIT as well as the voluminous writings about vlogging by Adrian Miles also of that august institution.
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.