Please find our documentation for submission-2 here.

Firstly, our zip file with the build files.

DMSP_v2

Secondly, our URL to the website and mobile version respectively. You can access all other portions from there. Please copy and paste, as the links are somehow disrupting the Google API.

playground.ace.ed.ac.uk/~s1147248/DMSP/index.html

playground.ace.ed.ac.uk/~s1147248/DMSP/Mobile.html

Thirdly, our documentation booklet.

Literary High Street PDF Booklet

Fourthly, our viewtorial.

The word ‘psychogeography’ has a sense of the scholarly. It suggests study, a seriousness of microscopes and set rules. Guy-Ernest Debord, a pioneer of the concept, describes the word in almost clinical terms, as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” Despite the stuffy definition, psychogeography is a playful concept. It is very much a display of randomness, designed to throw one off course, to become aware of one’s space. It acts as an “insubordination of habitual influences” (Debord 1955). This insubordination challenges our perceptions of space.

Psychogeography is narrative. It is a story, an element. It is how a place lives and breathes, through the eyes of one individual. In my outside reading this semester, a book called London Calling: A Countercultural History of London since 1945 by Barry Miles (2010), I was surprised to find this quote from Alexander Trocchi about Debord:

I remember long, wonderful psychogeographical walks in London with Guy [Debord]…He took me to places in London I didn’t know, that he didn’t know, that he sensed that I’d never have been to if I hadn’t been with him. He was a man who could discover a city…There was a magical quality to Guy. Distances didn’t seem to matter to the man. Walking in London, in the daytime, at night, he’d bring me to a spot he’d found, and the place would begin to live. Some old, forgotten part of London. Then he’d reach back for a story, for a piece of history, as if he’d been born there. (136)

Psychogeography is as much about experiencing earlier narratives as creating one’s own. There are stories within the walls, the hills, the trees. It is as much finding the stories of the past within the present, as we do with our Literary High Street project, as generating new narratives. These narratives may never exist beyond one’s own mind, they may not be told to friends, family, and so forth. We often do choose to share these narratives, whether we realize it or not. Recently, my parents came to visit. As we walked through Edinburgh, I found myself truly sharing my version of the city with them. Our leisurely walks brought us through the areas I know well—the University, my neighborhood, the shops and museums I frequent. As we walked, I told stories, of my adventures and misadventures, of things that occurred in the city’s past. This provided my parents with a view into my Edinburgh. The places I mention in our conversations are no longer names; they are actual locations, storefronts and streets. My friends are no longer characters; they exist in the flesh.

Sometimes, the psychogeographical aspects of the area cannot be shared through words. They are visceral and personal, the rituals that we make up for ourselves. Often our interpretations of an area are clouded by emotions, either that the landscape brings in us, or that which we are feeling in the moment, brought on by internal thoughts. Certain streets are tainted with annoyance, as I recall needlessly walking down them with an injured back. Others are happier places, memories of entertaining dinners with friends; others become places of solace, where I go to escape the busy world around me.

There is very much an aspect of getting lost to psychogeography. There are psychogeographical events that specifically want their participants to get lost, or at least end up in an area of the city/town where they have never been. This is termed “generative psychogeography” or algorithmic walking, where participants follow a set formula of taking turns at intersections (Hart, 2004). It is a similar concept to the ‘right hand road trip’ that bored American teenagers embark on. With the road trip game, every time the car comes to an intersection, the driver takes a right hand turn (if it is legal, if not, continue straight). The idea is to explore the area one lives in, in a different way. There is an excitement to this sort of thing, causing one to be more aware of the area they inhabit. Of course, one does run the risk of ending up exactly where one started approximately 20 minutes later (as I did on my first ‘right hand road trip’), but the sense of exploration and adventure caused me to notice how my hometown is put together.

I am very interested in exploring the emotional effects that a place has on a person (or that a person has on a place). The three cities I have lived in during my time as a University student—Boston, Florence, and Edinburgh—bring similar emotional responses in me. There is a similar undercurrent to these three cities, a similar feeling of memory and purpose. There is a grand exterior, with an undercurrent of the artsy and undiscovered. I feel at home in these cities. Larger cities, such as New York and London, have a different heartbeat. There is a manic energy, a clash of cultures, a sense of the busy. Yet under these cities, in each city, in every town, every street corner and forgotten tree, there is a feeling. Place and space evoke these emotions in us, peace, loneliness, excitement. It does not need to be much; the space does not need to be vast. Entering the library, one’s room, the cinema—each makes us experience the world differently. To take these experiences, these emotions, and distort them, turn them on their heads and challenge them, would be a truly psychogeographical experience.

You were expecting Edinburgh, weren't you?

Photograph by Bethany Wolfe

References:

Debord, G. (1955). Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography. Les Lèvres Nues,
6. Retrieved from library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/display/2

Hart, J. (2004). A new way of walking. Utne Reader, July/August 2004. Retrieved from www.utne.com/2004-07-01/a-new-way-of-walking.aspx

Miles, B. (2010). London calling: A countercultural history of London since 1945. London: Atlantic.

We made our presentation on 6 April. We were given several criticisms, all of which were very good.

Here is the summarized audience feedback:
-Add historical layers
-Use Google Streetview for Main map–pop up panorama with text on bottom
-Panorama–>simple, easy
-Disability compliance–>text. Size of font, audio, etc.
-Do we include UoE branding?

Animation must integrate
Can show part while moving to different texts
Splash screen?
Keep a sense of continuity

Historical photos play a key role

Potential for a search by author
View all texts
Sales/commerce

Tuesday marks Day 1 of the DMSP-athon. These two days are for finishing up our project and getting it to a nearly-finished state for our presentation this Friday afternoon.

Our day started with a list of what needs to be accomplished over the next two days:

• Email our Supervisors with the day, time and location of our presentation
• Add colour to the interface (both web and mobile)
• Add all text to the website
• Get voice attached to texts (record voice, embed Soundcloud link)
• Map overlays
• Create Powerpoint–>visuals (Esmy) and text (Beth)
• Link the various pieces together
• Put QR code into poster and reprint
• Test
• Print feedback forms

We’ve got a lot to get accomplished over the next two days, but it’s definitely doable.

Starting on Tuesday, we are going to have a DMSP-athon. 10 am until some point in the evening, followed by a second round on Wednesday, also beginning at 10 am.
Our schedule for the upcoming week:
Tuesday-work all day
Wednesday-finish and troubleshoot
Thursday-practice
Friday-present

We decided that as there is a bug with Cereproc, we’re going to make a few canned recordings, just to be on the safe side.

Here’s what everyone’s responsibilities are:

Bing–voice recording
Wen–PHP/Tour Times
Yi/Michelle/Beth-mobile
Jessica-map overlay/geolocation
Esmy-powerpoint
Beth-oversee/start pulling documentation

Everyone needs to send me their three bullet points for discussion by Saturday.

For our presentation:
The website must be completed
The mobile version must be completed, along with geolocation working and map
We need something for the voice. Even if the user has to press play when at a location. Either us an actor or mac voice synthesis.

I realized that I hadn’t transferred the posts from our previous blog, literaryhighstreet.wordpress.com, onto this one.
Below are the links to my individual posts.

Connections in the strangest places

Beth’s Interface Designs

We wr

At our supervisor/reality check meeting on Thursday, we had a good critique on how the project looks. John met with us to give his opinion on how the project looks. We are having difficulty getting the project to look right on different screens–it looks best on an iPad, is near impossible to read on an iPhone, and is good enough on a PC.
We are having a few disagreements on how the website should be put together (linked pages versus slides) but they are, hopefully, resolved.
Bing has put together a really good Flickr album with photographs for our website.

We are running into difficulty with the CereProc cloud API, and are meeting Monday afternoon to discuss.

As team leader, I have my concerns about the project being completed on time. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get the Geolocation and voice synthesis portions completed on time for our presentation.

As we are presenting on Friday, 6 April, this is what absolutely must be accomplished by then:

-Mobile site up and running
-Website completed
-CereProc working
-Geolocation working

Had a very successful group meeting today. Much progress has been made on our website (way to go Yi!), databases (good job Wen) and map (yay Jessica and Wen).

We still have

1. Fix links on map–click & move to panorama and text
2. Change Tour Time to: Short, Medium, Long
a. Short has texts 1-8
b. Medium has texts 1-16
c. Long has texts 1-24
3. Literary High Street Flickr Account–create
4. CereProc (read documentation)
5. Acknowledgment page
6. Mobile version of website