Textopia: Experiments with Locative Literature

textopia is a design experiment situated in humanist media studies, and based on a simple idea: Making it possible for someone who is walking through the city with a mobile phone to listen to literary texts which talk about whichever place she is walking by. The aim of this exercise has been to explore the relationship between places and literary texts – not just what the relationship is and has been, but what it can be in the new medium. Inspired by the ideas embedded in hermeneutics, open source philosophy and agile software development, I have outlined a methodological approach that I call "agile media design". In the course of the practical process I have ialso dentified three key principles for locative media design, summed up in the "G-P-S" model: Granularity, Particiation and Serendipity. Together they describe the unique characteristics of designs like textopia – a category I call "annotative, locative media". The textopia system is a hybrid approach which combines an interest in desveloping open, participatory media with literary analysis of the contributed texts – as well as theoretical and conceptual arguments about the nature of locative media. A commissioned work has been created for the Oslo International Poetry Festival. My literary analysis points to two features that may constitute key characteristics of this "locative literature": A strong deictic effect when directly addressing the reader as "you" – and a strong focus on counterfactual description and the invocation of absences. In further attempts at facilitating participation, a concept for doing creative writing as a game has been developed in order to integrate a playful exploration of the urban environment with the act of writing locatively. This is seen in relation to Jane McGonigal's work on creativity and community in ubiquitous games.