Cultural Ecologies

BACKGROUND: This work explores how interactive devices can be harnessed for capacity building in much broader and currently, poorly understood ways. A digital (walking trail) phone app was created to examine how different places can be reanimated by blending physical and digital environments. Willox et al (2012) examine how 'community-created media' have the capacity to reveal people's lived experiences. Burgess (2006) discusses how cultural resources can be recombined in novel ways, calling this a form of 'vernacular creativity'. Building on these studies, this work was created to document the methodological processes through which a cultural model for considering "place" might be newly reimagined through the application of digital innovations. CONTRIBUTION: Such digital innovations have thrown up new questions about how we might harness the potential of emerging technologies to shape possible futures that connect with the aspirations and agendas of the disenfranchised. The co-creative emphasis in this work offers a way to explore how community-generated media might function to sustainably collect, preserve and represent cultural heritage material. SIGNIFICANCE: Mass market apps such as Pokémon Go demonstrate the capacity of technologies to transcend the digital, physical and social realms. Working in a similar context, Cultural Ecologies seeks to redefine and recontextualise public and popular interactions with places through digital innovations such as augmented reality. The work was funded by RMIT University's Office of the Dean Learning and Teaching Investment Fund ($34,000) and by the state government arts initiative Creative Victoria Virtual Creative Professionals in Schools Program ($35,000). This work is featured in several publications published internationally. Reviewers noted the project's 'outstanding contribution' to mobile learning practice and innovation, and a strong project that 'leverages the unique affordances of mobile geolocation'.