swiss artists in labs residency

Monika Codourey
Disciplines: Architecture, Media Art
Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCI), Institute for Psychology, University of Basel
Duration: 9 Months (March-Dezember 2008)


Project title: Constant Travellers.

The aim of the project was to develop a prototype for a pervasive game about the effect of mobility on our emotional states. The source of inspiration for the design was to study the impac of physical and informational mobility of `constant travellers` on their perception and behaviour while they were travelling for business purposes.

Relevant Questions

The lifestyle of constantly travelling business subjects is increasingly dependent upon transit spaces woven together as spaces for work using laptops or mobile office phone. As a result many economic and social aspects of business travellers’ everyday life are increasingly conducted ‘on the move’ or `away from home’ and in the ’space of flow’. In addition this mode of de-territorialization involves a progressively greater population and results in emergence of new socio-technical practices (e.g. surveillance, social sorting, biometric authentication) influencing patterns of movements and co-presence within transportation systems. Transportation corridors are often considered as ‘non-place’ of transitory nature, empty of any meaning and social significance. Studies show that geolocated technologies augment the urban environment of their users with informational resources and therefore they are excellent tools to reshape the experience of mobility in urban settings.

Before I entered the residency I had many questions. If mediation of handheld devices converts transitory nature of constant mobility into creative experience itself? What kinds of interaction supported by mobile technologies is most suitable for development of game content based on the geolocation principle for ‘constant travellers’? What are the movement and interaction patterns of business travellers? How do they utilize mobile devices in everyday business and leisure activities on the move? How do business travellers perceive the space of flow during their everyday activities? What kind of social and spatial relations do they experi- ence? How fast do they go through security and safety thresholds? What kind of emotions/reactions are connected to border-crossing procedures and biometric authentication? What impact do new socio-technical practices have on their life?

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