Practice Makes Almost Perfect: A Methodological Reflection

Abstract

At one level, the walk scrutinized the mechanics of a Mediascape experience. The actions I employed in materializing the walk, such as preselecting sites (stairwell, hallway, studio) and the location of artifacts (shreds of paper and documents on studio walls), were similar to steps taken when creating a Mediascape experience. Using the Mediascape software, a user had to identify four criteria: 1) what digital content is to be encountered; 2) where the content is to be encountered; 3) how the interactions are to be triggered; and, 4) how the interactions are presented (Hull, Clayton & Melamed, 2004). The actions and selections in the desktop authoring environment defined the script that when downloaded onto an iPAQ, responded to physical criteria and triggered "real world" interactions. Evidently, there was very little spontaneity in a Mediascape experience. In mimicking a Mediascape experience, I therefore sought to alienate participants. Following Brecht, if the aim of alienation is to "purge of everything 'magical'" (2002, p. 94), then in the context of the annotated walk, the "magical" is the technology, and the "purge" constitutes its removal. In this sense, the walk was an effort to demystify the Mediascape experience, and draw attention to the extensive productive output of Almost Perfect participants. My original research plan - what I had proposed in my application - would have been more than sufficient in gathering data. That said, had I followed through with the predetermined methods, my results would have varied dramatically. In acknowledging a disjuncture between my research toolkit and context, I took pause to refled on and assess my methodology. This interruption in the research process also demanded that I consider the methods most suitable to confront my own general sense of uncertainty (Le., "what is locative media?"), and what I had come to identify as a shifting agenda within the research context (Le., the residency as a backdrop for Mediascape testing). Uninspired by traditional methods, I adopted a research-creation approach. Such a research methodology, as Estelle Barrett (2007) explains, is invested in the "production of knowledge or philosophy in action" (p. 1). Much like Heidegger's notion of "handlability," research-creation is a methodology that demonstrates how "knowledge is derived from doing" (Barrett, 2007, p. 1). As a method of research-creation, the walk resonates with Laurel Richardson's notion of a Creative Analytic Practice (Richardson, 2000, p. 929). In taking a cue from Richardson, I implemented creative means as a process of discovery (Richardson, 2001, p. 35), and as a way of making sense of my particular (research) context In the manner that writing equipped Richardson to "record little thoughts, to revisit them and fill in the blanks, to piece them together, thought-by-thought", and ultimately to gain a "feeling of control over time and space" (p. 33), the walk - as a site-specific intervention in the research space - was a means to generate and re-present knowledge derived from that particular (research) context. It emerged from my situated perspective ([Haraway], 1997; [Sandra Harding], 1991; [Rose], 1997) within a specific research context, and was employed in conjunction with participant observation and interviews. Finally, as an approach, research-creation was a process through which I was able to situate the technical details of Almost Perfed into a larger cultural and political context, and, navigate my competing positions, as a researcher conducting fieldwork, and as a partidpant in the residency. 3. Hewlett Packard Labs co-sponsored the Almost Perfect residency. HP developers were in attendance at the residency and hosted daily Mediascape toolkit workshops and assisted participants to create Mediascape experiences for the HP iPAQ (Personal Digital Assistant). The nucleus of the Mediascape system was the Mobile Bristol toolkit, which emerged from the Mobile Bristol program, a £32 million venture between Hewlett-Packard, the Universi y of Bristol, and The Appliance Studio. This research and development initiative pivoted on mobile and pervasive technologies for urban and public spaces. The toolkit consisted of a Windows based editing suite - an authoring environment or a "point and click" graphical user interface (GUI) - through which a user could design a Mediascape experience for a specific location in the real world (Hull, Clayton & Melamed, 2004). That application would then be downloaded onto an iPAQ for exhibition purposes. When the Mobile Bristol program ended in 2005, HP acquired the rights to Mediascapes, and rebranded it as Mscape Suite. In 2009, HP ceased its Mscape research and development program.