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GPS Narrative Research
Friday, 4th April 2008, 5:25pm (BST)
Some more research I've recently collected into GPS technology with narrative, and sources of inspiration.

Hopstory
Hopstory consists of plotlines of four fictional characters, set within the old Guinness Hopstore building of Dublin. Story fragments are distributed around the building, according to where they happened, and at the end, the story fragments can be replayed and edited by users to create a personalised story. This Rhizome description also offers some interesting historical context about relating the idea to religious habits of displaying a story in pictures across the interior walls of a church or building, thereby making that architectural space into a medium for storytelling. This is very much the same idea of what I wish to do, but I plan to actually use the advantages the physical space has to offer to break the boundaries of linearity, very much putting the user in control, both blindly in the way that they must randomly search the location for story fragments, and intellectually, in that they must use their thoughts and ideas to create their own connections between the fragments.

Location33
A Location-based game/narrative that allows users in the Culver City area (near Los Angeles) to connect their mobile devices to 20 different nodes throughout the free Wi-fi cloud in the city. Each node gives them a fragment of a song/story that they can remix and re-order with others as they wish to create a more interactive experience. Again, a similar idea that emphasises the interactivity and need to go and find all of the samples to make your piece even bigger.

Janet Cardiff: The Missing Voice
I've experienced this project myself during the first year London trip. As you walk through various streets of the city, you are guided with an audio tour, as a voice narrates the journey, complete with background sounds that you're not sure are part of the recording, or actually happening around you. It's a very affective way of applying a narrative to a physical space, albeit a linear route. With more time, I would like to be able to add audio and speach into my own work to match that atmosphere, but I think at this point it's best to stick to text - I don't have any good voice actors handy!

Holly's Inbox
A source of reference for my blog idea, I feel that it's also appropriate for this in the way that some of the full story is masked from you. You only gather the narrative from what the characters are communicating to each other, and the description of what happens can only be limited to conversation, and not a third person description. Somewhat similar to the way in which the full story in my GPS application will be masked from view, only accessible through certain clues, and through the perspective of the main character. It could possibly be something that compells the reader to explore further, attempting to gain as much information as possible.
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