An accompanying video to Phillip Vannini’s 2017 article in Space and Culture: ‘These boardwalks were made for bushwalking: Disentangling grounds, surfaces, and walking experience’. Video by April and Phillip Vannini (2015).
EMAC Ethnography.Media.Arts.Culture Network, is a group of students and scholars based at Royal Roads University in Victoria, B.C., Canada. For more information, see: publicethnography.net
Phillip Vannini (Royal Roads University)
A shoutout to Sam Kinsley’s site Spatial Machinations. Its reach across contemporary theory and global issues more than fulfills it ambitious mandate to chronicle and catalogue how media produce temporalities and spatialities. Recent discussions of affect theory and geography, American military visions of cities as dystopic are typically engrossing and on point. However, taking the time to archive a missed event – I just picked up “Paramatta”, so inferred its not only past but was far away (suburban Sydney Australia), gives us not only an echo of an event but flags important insights such as the declining rate of innovation.
A typical gem of a post is the 2009 ‘A Vision – Simon Armitage’: which draws on Simon Armitage‘s Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus the Corduroy Kid a lyrical contrast between a found architect’s rendering and a bleak-looking photo of Thamesmead, a huge Brutalist housing project in SE London.
Thamesmead was the setting for Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. There is little online in photographs that capture the social life of the development. Thamesmead seems stuck in black and white 60s and 70s, including the outstanding photography of George Plemper.
Rob Shields (University of Alberta)
Iphone 7 had an initial launch in 28 countries on September 16th. Though I’m not a fan of Apple products, but since the price of iphone 7 is much cheaper in Canada than in China and my friends and I are leaving for China, we decided to buy iphone 7 for our families.
One of my colleagues said that the iphone 7 would be very popular according to the experience in the previous years. She suggested that I line up for the iphone 7 in West Edmonton Mall as early as possible. At first, I took this as a joke, because the iphone 7 seems have no big difference from iphone 6 or 6s, most of the fans would be waiting for iphone 7s or 8. However, what made me change my mind is the picture of the queue in front of the Shanghai branch of the Apple Store.
The queue in front of Shanghai Apple Store
(http://news.china.com/hd/11127798/20160916/23562627_3.html#photos)
So I decided to line up for the phone and went to WEM at 8PM on September 15th. However, there were only a few people waiting. To my surprise, two girls brought blankets and pillows, as well as snacks and drinks. “Professional！” I said to myself. Behind the two girls were two heavily-bearded men. They said they work for Telus. After a short time chatting, we waited together, watching films or playing phone games separately.
Two well-prepared girls
At about 2AM, there were still a few people waiting, which made me really disappointed. Suddenly, four men cut in the queue right in front of me. I asked politely and said “Please line up behind us”. But the bearded men said that the four guys are his friends and they just wanted to play games together. If they get the only phone, they would give it to me immediately. I believed them and let them jump in, which I regretted later. They were playing and chatting so noisily that I couldn’t sleep the whole night.
At 7.45AM, some Apple staff came out and asked for our request. I wanted a 128G matte black iphone 7. But the guy right in front of me ordered this one. And what I got from the staff is there was no 128G matte black 7 and I must change my request to a gold one. “That’ not fair!” my friends and I were angry. We tried to negotiate with them because they promised us they give us the phone if they got it since they jumped the line. However, they pretended they didn’t say that. I was so stupid that I trusted these people. What the worst thing was that after one of the men got the ideal one I wanted, he asked me how much I would like to pay to get the phone. Then I was keenly exasperated! What a scalper! “Lair! I won’t pay anything!” I said to them. And finally I got a gold one reluctantly. But the staff said that I can swap if there would be some models on stock after a few days.
That was a really unhappy experience. But I’m really appreciate the help I got from the Apple staff, Jonathon. Without his help and patience, I would not have a matte black iphone 7 now.
Ziru Deng (East China Normal University, Shanghai)
You go to the Pokémon (creature) so you actually have to see the monument and it opens people up to the city. The game highlights local art and monuments for people who otherwise wouldn’t have known they existed (Edmonton Pokémon Go player).
There is a craze targeting 20-somethings in our fair city. It’s Pokémon Go. For those who missed the Pokémon movement of the late 90’s, Pokémon are little creatures such as snakes, rats, dragons, eggs, etc. and the goal of the game is to ‘catch ’em all’. The new virtual Pokémon Go has exploded among those nostalgic for their Pokémon past. While Pokémon Go players wander the parks and playgrounds in search of these little creatures, one can’t help but wonder if there is something else happening.
Is Pokémon Go a new opportunity for public engagement?
Michel de Certeau argues that stories, dreams, histories and myths connect people to places and render them tangible and habitable. Pokémon Go could be a new form of urban myth that not only connects, or reintroduces, Pokémon participant to the sights and sounds of their city, but also spontaneously brings people together, creating random, fluid and temporary ‘communities’.
Pokémon Go is ‘bowling en masse’ and is a golden opportunity for engaging, talking, reaching out, involving, inviting, attracting and introducing the uninitiated to the art of planning our public spaces. As any urban planner will tell you, public engagement can be quite disengaging for many citizens. The challenge is to balance needs, interests, concerns of all citizens often within tight fiscal constraints and many times, only a fraction of citizen voices are heard.
While this new fluid Pokémon Go audience may not necessarily be ‘captive’, they are ‘out there’, gathered in public spaces and maybe even available to talk about these newly rediscovered public spaces and perhaps other planning issues that come to mind….bike lanes, infill, public art, affordable housing, urban sprawl, etc. etc. But like all crazes and fads, this too shall pass, and planners must strike while the iron is hot. So come on planners, get your Pokémon game on, join in, and see what happens.
Dianne Gillespie (University of Alberta)
