Personalising the Urban: A Critical Account of Locative Media and the Digital Inscription of Place

Abstract

Drawing on original qualitative research on both the seminal location-based social network (LBSN), Foursquare, and the hugely popular hybrid-reality game (HRG), Pokémon Go, the purpose of this chapter is to provide a historical and critical overview of the different ways in which people have utilised these locative applications to enhance and personalise their experience of the urban. In doing so, we pay close attention to how the spatial impact of more recent HRGs can be contextualised through recourse to earlier LBSNs. This research advances along three lines. First, the research explores whether the underpinning game mechanics of these applications might lead participants to traverse their environment using modified routes. Second, the research explores whether participants frequent new places that they perhaps otherwise would not visit outside of both applications. Third, the research examines whether potentially reshaped mobilities are supported by the pleasure participants experience through locative play. It is the contention of this chapter that locative media has not simply enhanced space by making physical environments easier to navigate or more playful to interact with; more significantly, locative media has enabled people to personalise their experience of the urban through the digital inscription of place. This potentiality is commensurate with both older and newer forms of locative media.