Exploring Embodied Mediated Performative Interactions in Urban Space Ava Fatah gen. Schieck Eamonn O’Neill Petros Kataras The Bartlett Department of Computer Science The Bartlett University College London University of Bath University College London WC1E 6BT, UK Bath BA2 7AY, UK WC1E 6BT, UK ava.fatah@ucl.ac.uk eamonn@cs.bath.ac.uk ABSTRACT Digital media developments have augmented everyday interactions, creating visual and auditory interaction spaces that enable various types of performative experiences as we interact within a shared space. Our research investigates some of the types of shared interactions that such technology enables. In this short paper we summarise some of our research into applying methods based on intervention in urban space and playful use of technology, exploring how people appropriate the medium and perform embodied interactions in diverse contexts. We note the importance of constructing socially meaningful relations between people mediated by these technologies. Author Keywords Urban space, performance, digital technologies, shared encounters. ACM Classification Keywords General Terms INTRODUCTION The built environment plays a key role in the construction and reflection of social behaviors [8]. Within a supportive physical environment and temporal continuity, people perform a place ballet; a set of integrated gestures and movements that maintain a particular aim within a habitual space-time routine in everyday life [14]. Public places such as the bus stop or the town square can act as “encounter stages” on which people perform various interactions of a social and cultural nature. From time to time, events might interrupt the habitual nature of everyday rhythm and stimulate conversations between strangers – acting as interventions that alter the status of these interactions. The individuals’ actions in these situations seem to turn into a performance that is bound to socio- cultural conventions. Goffman describes performances in everyday interactions and suggests that they are shaped by the environment and the audience. The individuals assign roles to themselves, and the others, and perform face-to-face interactions suitable for their assumed roles [6]. Like space, technologies can mediate interactions. How and what form these interactions take (and how “appropriate” they are judged to be) is influenced by the affordances of the space within which the performance takes place. Mediated interactions are influenced by the people present, the nature of the space and the characteristics of the artefacts or devices through which performance is mediated. Increasingly, digital technologies allow interactions remotely between different spaces, which may at times seem to be reducing the quality of the individuals’ experience of place and shared encounters. However, the introduction of situated technologies as intervention in urban space may motivate and modify social interactions or stimulate new performative behaviours. It may interrupt the habitual nature of everyday interactions, creating new stages on which people can play out their engagements mediated by the new media technologies. What happens when playful digital technologies such as the public display or a reactive sound installation are embedded in the urban space? What kind of performative interactions do the visual and auditory interaction spaces [12] support people to embody? What happens when people are aware of these interventions? Will this stimulate different types of social interactions? In order to explore some of these facets of sociotechnical behaviours within the urban context, we deployed two prototypes using the body as an interface. In the next section, we describe two studies and investigate technology-mediated shared encounters. We address various aspects related to the physical and performative interactions within the urban context. THE STUDIES In the first intervention study we deployed the “urban carpet”, a horizontal digital display with a grid of responsive LEDs. When pedestrians walk over it, their locations are sent to a computer and a pattern of lights is generated, creating a visual interaction space that follows their movement dynamically [3, 5]. Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). UbiComp’10, September 26–29, 2010, Copenhagen, Denmark. ACM 978-1-60558-843-8/10/09.