Group 3 - The Path To Community

Team Members:

Peter Yu - 200128947 (yyu@sfu.ca)

Danny Yang - 200132557 (dannyy@sfu.ca)

Jacey Wang - 200115845 (jaceyw@sfu.ca)

Raymond Wang - 200104234 (shengw@sfu.ca)

Project Goal

The central theme of the project is connection, the connection linked by transportation pathways. Viewers who visit the website could upload pictures taken around these "pathways" and discuss it with others. We as the host will take these pictures and make the connectioin and see what emerges from it.

Methodologies

Users can upload pictures to our website; they have to take pictures around the public transportation paths, such as sky train, high way, and rail way, etc. We will arrange these pictures and use them to create a big map. For each individual picture in the map is clickable. Viewer can click any pictures on the map to link to a small forum. In the small forum, it includes the information about the picture, such as where the picture was taken, the weather status, and the author's feeling and thoughts. People can discuss about the picture on this small forum. By discussing on the forum, people can connect together into a community.

Technologies considered

Since we are creating a website for users to upload pictures, we will need a web space for the website (and forums) and a server for uploading pictures.

Users will need a camera or any device with a digital camera function to take pictures and upload to our website.

- webspace

- server

- camera

IAT 401 TA, Vicki Moulder, Comments 09/28/06

These sites could help you along with your project:

• www.flickr.com - this could be a site were you could post all of the images.
• www.nowpublic.com - could post your project on their site you might get more traffic.
• jalbum.net - MAYBE BEST MATCH! This gallery software makes web albums of your digital images. JAlbum aims to be the easiest to use and most powerful tool in this category - and free!

vmoulder, Proposed Skytrain Graffiti Site

vmoulder, Crossing the Skytrain bridge to Surrey

IAT 401 Niranjan Rajah, Comments 10/03/06

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Sounds like you have got the physical context of the project well sorted but how will the upload of images and discussion manifest as a self directed or emergent phenomena if you the host team (you) will designate the position of the image. Also if discussion forum is tied to image how will you develop the possibility for connections to develop. See also my comments for Group 2 regatding folksonomy.

IAT 401 Group 3, Research/Theory 10/05/06

According to Mark Gover, his argument to identity is what the characteristics that the object represents that people could acquire from them to know what it is. How we are applying this argument to our project, “the path to community” is that we want the viewers to know our environment from the sights that sky train bridges passes by. What we hope to emerge in this project, is when all pictures forms into a whole, it will present a mini-city map of our living area. People who read this map, could also visit the virtual community and leave their impressions about the map.

According to Venturi, Scott Brown, cities are a communication system. We are applying into our concept saying that the pathways within the city make up the communication system, like the networks within the system. With this project, we hope that from the pictures, a system emerges from the various signs, symbols and pathways.

Reference:

Robert Venturi - "Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture" and "Learning from Las Vegas"

Mark Gover - "THE NARRATIVE EMERGENCE OF IDENTITY"