Visualizing bits as urban semiotics

Abstract

Geosemiotics, defined as the study of meaning of placing signs in the material world, concerns the interaction of spatial, individual, social, and cultural contexts. Mobile technology, enabling spatial awareness successfully, has turned our living space into coordinates to broaden geosemiotics study. With interdisciplinary perspectives, there is an emerging potential to integrate the study of mobile spatial interaction and geosemiotics and we address several open issues of geospatial applications in this paper. Since indexicality is the focus of geosemiotics study, we focus on digital indexicalities referring to physical space. Physical indexical signs are usually set by government or organizations rather than individuals, and therefore we propose a new concept to place personal indexical signs in the physical space with mobile devices and augmented reality technology. Overlapped onto the physical world via visual, iconic, and metaphorical methods, what these unique personal semiotics bring is a living space with novel urban landscape and geosemiotics.