The Cut & Paste of Urban Notation

Jun 13, 2009

It's rare to see post-its out in the wild - they just don't make 'em sticky enough. This particular example pulled from a neighbouring parking meter - suffering from the same 'FAIL' message as mine. A simple example of the desire to notate i.e. leaving a note for the parking attendant, and an overlap between what is notated - i.e. wanting to leave much the same message as other people in similar circumstances. Think of them as error messages for the real world - sooner or later someone is going to be confronted with the same message (and if you're wondering the car in the next parking space had already left).

In a world of digital urban notation (geo-tagging++) - to what extent do we want to cut and paste from other people's notes? And to what extent to we simply want to reference or link to someone else's notes? Does the argument that this parking meter doesn't accept coins become stronger when others have had the same experience? If not legally, than morally? In what circumstances is it better to distance yourself from the crowd, to highlight your unique circumstances?

What tools will we use to make these digital notations? The mobile phone digital camera is, globally, the most prevalent tool for cutting and pasting stuff - although currently there is very little auto-extraction of data/meta data from those photos.

Final thoughts before the studio drifts into work: what new practices will arise when user generated urban error messages are more persistent, more transparent, more discoverable? How does your shopping experience change when you know that you are not liable for that failed parking meter, that you don't need to worry about the stickiness of that post-it fluttering in the wind?