Moritz Behrens

Smart Citizen Sentiment Dashboard: A Case Study Into Media Architectural Interfaces

In this paper we introduce the notion of media architectural interfaces (MAIs), which describe the relation between users engaging with dynamic content on media façades through tangible artifacts on street level. Firstly, we outline existing research concerned with public displays, urban screens and media facades, secondly we summarize related works that explore mediated urban interactions in connection with MAIs. We report on the technical set up of a field study, in which we deployed a novel tangible user interface (TUI), called the Smart Citizen Sentiment Dashboard (SCSD). This device gives citizens the opportunity to express their mood about local urban challenges. The input from this TUI is then instantly displayed on a very large (3700 sqm) media façade. The installation ran for three weeks during a media arts festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil. During this deployment period, we were able to gather data to help us understand the relationship between passers-by, participants, the TUI and the media façade. As a result we identified emergent behavior in the immediate space around the TUI and the wider urban space. The contribution this paper makes is in highlighting challenges in the design and deployment of large-scale media architectural interfaces.

Tension Space Analysis: Exploring Community Requirements for Networked Urban Screens

This paper draws on the design process, implementation and early evaluation results of an urban screens network to highlight the tensions that emerge at the boundary between the technical and social aspects of design. While public interactive screens in urban spaces are widely researched, the newly emerging networks of such screens present fresh challenges. Researchers wishing to be led by a diverse user community may find that the priorities of some users, directly oppose the wishes of others. Previous literature suggests such tensions can be handled by ‘goal balancing’, where all requirements are reduced down to one set of essential, implementable attributes. Contrasting this, this paper’s contribution is ‘Tension Space Analysis’, which broadens and extends existing work on Design Tensions. It includes new domains, new representational methods and offers a view on how to best reflect conflicting community requirements in some aspects or features of the design.

Exploring the effect of spatial layout on mediated urban interactions

In this paper we focus on the spatial configuration and emergent social interactions in two locations in London mediated by interactive and networked urban displays. Our analysis draws upon interactions mediated through displays we implemented in the real world connecting four urban spaces [1]. We outline our case study and the methodology we implemented, including the analysis of the spatial layout on the micro/local scale in two sites, followed by the observations of social behavior and technologically mediated interactions by actors, spectators and passers-by during two community events, before finally outlining the following identified interaction zones: 1) direct interaction space surrounding the display (direct); 2) the surrounding public space (wide); and 3) across spatial boundaries i.e. the remotely connected space through networked displays (connected) over time. We highlight site-specific interactions and compare them to the more generic types of interactions, thus contributing to the understanding of mediated social interactions. We suggest that the properties of the spatial layout play a significant role and, to a certain extent, frame the type of interactions mediated through public displays. We highlight in particular the dynamic and interconnected nature of this mediation, defined through the spatial layout, people, type of social activities, and time of the day.

Moment Machine: Opportunities and Challenges of Posting Situated Snapshots onto Networked Public Displays

Large public displays are becoming a ubiquitous resource in the urban environment. Interconnected over the Internet these hitherto isolated “ad displays” could become a novel and powerful communication medium – networked public displays. One example for such a novel type of communication is their use as community tools. Scattered across the urban landscape and equipped with additional sensors, such as cameras, they provide the opportunity for local community members to take images of themselves and leave their “mark” in the setting, e.g., on their way to school, work, or meeting with friends. In order to understand the potential of posting situated snapshots on networked public displays in the context of place-based communities we designed and developed the Moment Machine – a networked public display application that allows one-click photo capture. In this paper we report on identified opportunities and challenges emerging from 6 user trials in the wild at 2 locations.

Considering Communities, Diversity and the Production of Locality in the Design of Networked Urban Screens

Highly diverse settings such as London (with people from ~179 countries speaking ~300 languages) are unique in that ethnic or socio-cultural backgrounds are no longer sufficient to generate a sense of place, belonging and community. Instead, residents actively perform place building activities on an ongoing basis, which we believe is of great importance when deploying interactive situated technologies in public spaces. This paper investigates community and place building within a complex multicultural context. We approached this using ethnography, complemented with workshops in the wild. By studying the relationships arising between different segments of the community and two networked screen nodes, we examine the place building activities of residents, and how screen nodes are incorporated into them. Our research suggests that urban screens will be framed (and eventually used) as part of this continuing process of social, spatial and cultural construction. This highlights the importance of enabling socially meaningful relations between the people mediated by these technologies.

Screens in the Wild: Exploring the Potential of Networked Urban Screens for Communities and Culture

In this paper, we describe our Research-in-the-Wild driven methodology to tackle a complex range of social, technical and interactional issues when implementing networked Urban Screens in London and Nottingham, UK [1]. The diversity of the local communities provides a unique opportunity for the research to examine interactions within the town centres, as well as UK-wide.

Living light lab: exploring instant feedback in mediated urban space

In recent years locative media as an artistic approach towards exploring mediated urban spaces has been rising [1]. At the same time gathering of environmental data through sensor networks grows rapidly. Living Light Lab aims to facilitate on artistic and scientific approaches to feed invisible data back into the built environment with the aim to explore how we may visualize and display data in an abstract way. The project currently is in its concept and prototyping stage, therefore we will highlight the challenges we are facing. Further we will report on an initial pilot study which took place at the UCL Building Projection Party in June 2013.

Designing Media Architectural Interfaces for Interactions in Urban Spaces

How should one go about designing for interactions with large programmable electronic displays? Part of the challenge is that there are currently only a handful of large interactive surfaces in existence, and so there is much to learn from each attempt to deploy interactive systems. Hence, the work outlined in this chapter contributes to Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) research as well as architectural research by juxtaposing existing interaction frameworks. These frameworks are concerned with the awareness of spaces mediated through information and communications technology (ICT), participants and their actions within these spaces as well as the physical properties of these spaces, which frame these interactions, and are surrounded by the physical built environment. We introduce the notion of media architectural interfaces (MAI), which is then supported through the description of the design, deployment and evaluation of two design studies, namely VEIV London and SCSD Sao Paulo. Finally, we discuss the multilayered interaction frameworks with regard to the conducted design studies and summarize the relevant communalities of these design studies in a taxonomy. The aim of this categorization is to provide design implications for future MAI projects. Ultimately, this may support the design and development of novel and sustainable interactive systems in the domains of urban screens, media facades and media architecture.