The Meaning of Place
The Meaning of Place: Technological imagination and human experience
Intel Research Forum and Seminar, September 9-10, 2003
New technologies are reconfiguring our relationship to the places we inhabit. With the near ubiquitous presence of cell phones in many cities, the rise of wireless networks, hybrid games, the use of geographical information systems, and the emergence of an embedded computing research agenda in many labs, physical location has re-emerged as an important construct in the imagination of and creation of new technologies.
But humans think of place quite differently than our technologies might demand. We inhabit places, not physical coordinates or zones of reception. Places are imbued with meaning through cultural practice; places are bounded and denoted in ways that may or may not match physical or technological means. This forum is intended to understand how the human construction of place both affects and is affected by new technologies.
Workshop summaries online:
Places and risk
Place and meaning
Maps
Expression / Artistry
Places and Social Networks
Entertainment and Play
Building communities
Building places