City: A Mixture of Old and New Media

5.6 Conclusion

The City project emphasises the interdependence of media, such as computer graphics and audio, with others. We have explored the combination of CVE technology with hypermedia and mobile computers, and also with the architecture and exhibits of the Mackintosh Interpretation Centre. Supporting broad social context in remote collaboration involves heterogeneity, and our project aimed to address this through coupling and correspondences between media. Users of a mixed collection of interactive media were able to enjoy a shared visit experience, engaging in collaboration through awareness of each other’s activity and through more focused talk and interaction around “hybrid” objects.

By presenting the theoretical issues underlying much of this work, as well as system design and experiences of use, this chapter may serve to complement many other chapters of this book. Rather than considering that users inhabit our information space, we see people as inhabiting cities and towns, and using new technologies and older media to interact with friends, relatives and colleagues. Looking to the near future, CVE technologies will be widely available via phones and mobile computers. I suggest that taking fuller account of their use among a wider set of technologies and media, and designing for contextuality, heterogeneity and seamfulness, will greatly enrich our work.