Navigation in Online Offline Spaces

In navigation, vision is actively engaged in determining where to move or what to do next. This forward-directed mode of vision is increasingly embedded in interactions with locative mobile media, which enable navigation with and within screen devices.With augmented reality (AR) smartphone applications, such as Acrossair, Layar, or Wikitude, a new genera­tion of users browses data directly, as it is represented on the screen, within the spatial context off the screen.These new kind of geomedia converge the prac­tices of browsing, touring, and streaming by layering geocoded data onto the grid of live-captured video camera images.However, how is the visual language of naviga­tion and the haptic intercourse with navigational screens fixing the relation­ship be­tween on-screen and off-screen space? The seminar will discuss several kinds of important historical milestones in the development of AR navigation practices and technologies in order to pave the way for a better understanding of alleged new media today. To that end, the seminar will demonstrate how methods of oral history, historical ethnography, and material socio-technical analysis can be used to point out a microanalytical history of geomedia. English comprehension and expression skills are required. Medienwissenschaftliches Seminar Universität Siegen WiSe 2014/15 Univ.-Prof. Dr. Thielmann Tristan