kurt

The Authoring Environment is the Content

In a discussion today about a mobile authoring tool for a location-based network it occured to me that there is no reason to separate the authoring space from the content space. If the authoring/content space were shared and dynamically updated as users made content contributions then the author would have the advantage of seeing the immediate implementation of the work and the user would have the advantage of observing the creative process.

The objection could be made that the content space would become too cluttered for the author to work in. It seems that this would be a problem for the mobile user in the content space as well and the clutter issue must be solved by a filtering/tuning/focusing/framing system anyway. So if an effective and powerful filtering system were implemented then the author would be able to block out distracting content. But even more interesting is the capability of the author to allow for content to exist within the creative space during the authoring process. So an author could choose to isolate all the night imagery associated with a specific location and then voice annotate a spoken word piece about her love twilight wanderings in that neighborhood. Of course an author could choose to filter out everything and create a blank canvas as well.

The superimposition of the authoring environment upon the pre-existing content (or content upon the authoring environment) of a mobile location-based environment is particularly compelling considering the networked collaborative effort to construct the content space. Artists often surround themselves with the works that inspire them in a variety of mediums. Those pieces exist peripherally to the art being created in the moment and become the context. In the mobile media space, the content creation device (the mobile phone, PDA, laptop or AR HMD) is the content viewing device so the user is the author and thus uniquely positioned to blur the lines between content and its context.