Idea Lab

Imagine your city as a war zone...like Baghdad. This project called Shadows from another place, by Professor Paula Levine at San Francisco State University, involved the transposing an interactive map of Baghdad on San Francisco using GPS mapping - complete with a warzone audio track. How does this impact our understanding of and feelings about the Iraq war...or any war?

This is an early example of locative media projects that will eventually move such computer based experiences into your own neighborhood and direct reality. Imagine, for example, the ability to point your cell phone at your post office in your local community, and to see and hear the images of an explosion that rocked a post office in Baghdad, in Israel, or elsewhere. Would this change the way you think and respond to violence around the world and at home? Imagine the reverse scenario...a resident of Baghdad being able to point his/her cell phone at the site of a wrecked downtown and see an image of a peaceful, thriving city center. How would that change the way he/she thinks about peace and what must be done to achieve it...???