Most people think of digital networking in conjunction with something called cyberspace – a space removed from the physical spaces in which our bodies live. They think of virtual reality as a synthetic experience removed from the relevancy of the real. But as the Internet becomes more pervasive and computing moves out of the desktop and into phones, music players, and the urban environment, as the social and political fabric of society migrates into virtual worlds, we have to consider how new technology is transforming how we design, inhabit and interact in physical space. We have to consider what new forms of narrative and documentary representations might emerge. We have to consider how identity and social interactions of all kinds are changing in response. The Network Localities Collective at Emerson College is a practice-based research initiative devoted exploring these issues.  The represented work focuses on the design of new technologies, processes, practices and methodologies that have the ability to transform the physical and psychological make-up of our inhabited spaces and to invent new immersive, interactive and networked forms of media.

The goals of the NLC include the following:

To investigate how new and emerging technologies are changing how we design, inhabit and interact in physical spaces

As screens get smaller and smaller and content is shifting away from hard drives and into networks, the spaces of media consumption are moving away from the theater, living room and office.  Increasingly, it is on the street, in the subway, at a friend’s house or in a café.  This shift in technological practice is transforming the shape of the media and quite literally, the shape of the spaces from which we consume the media.  As an innovator in communication and the arts, it is imperative that Emerson College remains in the avant-garde of media form as well as content.  This collective brings together the work already taking place at Emerson College on this topic and provides the framework for encouraging other faculty and students to contribute.

To develop technologies for emergent forms of place-based and immersive media

New technologies, whether they are computer hardware and software, or image capture equipment such as video and still camera equipment are constantly emerging. NLC would act a test bed for the technologies that are best suited for the production of place-based and immersive media, and to develop technologies when none exist.

To design new processes, practices and methodologies for the use of those technologies

Identifying and developing new technologies is only half the battle.  Projects that are housed in the collective are all concerned with how new and emerging technologies can be used to innovate content, provide greater access to information and knowledge, and open up opportunities for collaboration.  For example, Imaging Place has developed a groundbreaking method for delivering content in virtual worlds, and Hub2 employs virtual worlds to foster innovations in the community engagement process around urban design.  Future projects will look towards producing new hardware and software to better meet social, political and aesthetic goals.

To build a flexible and dynamic digital archive

Archiving is more than just storing files on a server.  The collective seeks to create a flexible archive that can accommodate multiple file formats and access scenarios and a dynamic archive that can easily grow and be made compatible with other data sets.  In this era of digital accessibility, archiving is one of the most important tasks of a research group, as it assures the continued relevance of the work.

To facilitate international, inter-institutional, interdisciplinary collaborations

By its nature, this work is international, inter-institutional, interdisciplinary, and collaborative. NLC would provide the technology and the infrastructure for conducting collaborative activities over distances, between individuals and institutions, and across disciplines using telecommunication technologies. The telecollaboration features of the NLC would act as a model that could be replicated elsewhere.

To create a public exhibition space that showcases the work

The NLC would include an exhibition space, where the public can engage in a permanent, but evolving exhibition of the work as it is produced. Additionally, exhibitions could be prepared, tested and packaged for travel and servers would stream web-based versions of the work.

To stage conferences and events tailored to the mission of the collective

The NLC would sponsor public events, including symposia and conferences.  In addition to the continuation of the well-respected Floating Points series, the collective would make an effort to invite local scholars and artists to speak and conduct workshops at Emerson College. 

To innovate teaching and learning with digital technologies through project-based curriculum

In an attempt to engage students in these possibilities and to develop a global, twenty-first century approach to pedagogy, we have already begun experimenting with place-based immersive and networked media curriculum development. This is represented in the Exchange Program that is in the planning stages at Emerson College and the Hub2 Program that connected Emerson with the City of Boston.  The idea is to create a collaborative, interdisciplinary, inter-institutional series of courses that could take advantage of new and emerging media.

There are several projects, which would fall under the umbrella of the NLC, including:

·      Emerson Island

·      The Digital Lyceum

·      Imaging Place

·      Hub2

·      The Foreign Exchange Pilot Project

·      Floating Points

Emerson Island is academic project in Second Life devoted to research, creative projects and experimental teaching and learning. It includes a replica of the Tremont and Boylston corner including the Boston Common and the Boylston subway stop. Activities are associate with specific buildings; the Bordy building for live events and an archive of past events; a classroom at the Ansin building; a wiki style library at the Walker Building; a gallery space; screening room, and a sandbox for experiments on the Common. The Subway provides teleport and web links to related projects and institutions from throughout Boston and beyond. 

Hub2 is a pilot initiative funded by the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) that employs emerging 3D virtual world technologies to enhance community engagement in the urban planning process. It is designed to work alongside the BRA’s current community outreach methods, while providing residents with a deeper engagement with the design process and greater accessibility to the ideas emerging from within the community.  While there are numerous projects that seek to create digital public forums, the unique contribution of Hub2 is its use of 3D virtual worlds as a new “language” for public discourse. Hub2 enables people to communicate their passion for public spaces in a collaborative setting. Participants don’t just talk through ideas – they build their vision in a realistic 3D world. Unlike a 2D or 3D representation, a 3D virtual world allows individuals to inhabit spaces as virtual representations of people who can move through and interact with that space. Hub2 employs the 3D virtual world Second Life to achieve this functionality.  It is inexpensive to maintain and has a relatively gentle learning curve for people unfamiliar with 3D interfaces.  The first iteration of the Hub2 program consisted of two courses at Emerson College during the Fall 2007 semester.  Students and residents created three-dimensional immersive models of sites in the Greater Boston Area to be used by the City of Boston to assist in future development plans.  In December 2007, the virtual key to the city was handed to Mayor Menino’s office.

The Foreign Exchange Pilot Project will bring faculty and students from Emerson College together with their foreign counterparts through interdisciplinary collaborative exchange program. Students will work together to document their experience of urban space from both a local as well as a foreign perspective. The groups will both spend two intensive weeks conducting fieldwork including media production and study on location in each of the two cities. We will use networked digital technology to facilitate the exchange and to test if these technologies make it possible to overcome language, time and other barriers. The courses will culminate in a simultaneous public exhibition, in both cities, of the work that was produced. The exhibitions will be linked via the Internet and will provide an opportunity for a discourse between the audiences in both locations.

Originally conceived of and developed by Professor Brooke Knight and Jo-Anne Green and Helen Thorington of Turbulence.org, Floating Points has brought together the entire new media faculty at Emerson College to produce an annual speaker series, which has taken place at Emerson College each spring since 2004. It examines some of the current critical areas being explored by net-based artists: interactivity, visualization, Internet protocol, software art, generative art, mapping, and games. The series considers contemporary theoretical and conceptual issues in net art, challenging notions of the art object, the artist and the audience.

2004 Floating Points 1 – Net Art Now

2005 Floating Points 2 – Networked Art in Public Spaces

2006 Floating Points 3 – Ubiquitous Computing

2007 Floating Points 4: Participatory Media

2008 Floating Points 5: Mixed Realities