A Sense of Place

If reading is both a solitary and a social activity then it is a static and a moving one too. For much of it takes place while we are travelling – and it whisks us to faraway places in our minds – even while we sit immobile, book in hand.

So what are we to make of a book, like this one, that has its own sense of place thanks to built-in GPS? The possibilities for non-fiction books, especially guidebooks, are obvious, but can this technology assist in telling stories?

Even beyond tongue-in-cheek classics like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the Klingon Language SuiteΦ iPhone app, the borderlands between destination guides and fiction have a long and fertile history. One can imagine, for example, Joyce aficionados navigating Dublin on BloomsdayΦ, smartphone version of Ulysses in hand. Fans of Crime and PunishmentΦ and From HellΦ might do the same in St. Petersburg and London. Indeed there is a whole group of writers who have been influenced by psychogeographyΦ (the study of the effect of our geographic environment on our emotions and behaviour) including Ian SinclairΦ, Peter AckroydΦ and Will SelfΦ.

One example of location-based fiction created specifically with mobile devices in mind is Oedo YokaiΦ, a phone-enabled collection of Japanese ghost stories associated with particular places in Tokyo. The location-aware version of the software can tailor the story to the position of the reader, who can use this feature to wander Tokyo summoning and gathering these spirits at their alleged haunts.

For common travel routes, it's not hard to foresee imaginative authors weaving tales that unfold in time and space with the readers progress, and making use of locations en route to add texture to the story.

Another intriguing approach is sugested by Google's Sky MapΦ, an application that allows you to point your phone at the sky to find out the names of stars. Particularly given the roles of the constellations in inspiring ancient human myths, how spine-tingling to be able to hold your phone to the night sky and be told a story that lies hidden there amid the specks of light.

But for the ultimate (so far) in merging the physical with the fictional, look at 'augmented reality'. By overlaying computer-generated graphics (and sometimes sound) from your phone with the real-world perspective seen through its camera lens, this provides an everyday version of the fighter-jet pilot's heads-up display. The most basic systems use only the inbuilt GPS and compass to determine the position and orientation of the phone; more sophisticated ones actually recognise real-world objects in their field of view.

The following pair of videos shows some of the emerging possibilities. Don't be too distracted by the fact that users have to continually hold their phones up to their eyes to achieve the desired effect – contact-lens versions are in the pipelineΦ. Also, note the irony that among the objects these devices can decorate with their graphics are good old-fashoned print books. (Indeed, there is already a commercial application, KooabaΦ, that can find online information for users based on the appearance of a book or even a page.)

Crudely experimental though most augmented reality systems still are, the possibilities for storytelling are rich and varied.