Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
to identify nearby properties and interrogate specific regions of the city for NAMA
connections. It was the first mapping of NAMA properties available and is still the
only available mapping of NAMA properties available in Dublin.
4.4
Reception and Activation
NAMAland
succeeded in capturing the popular imagination in Ireland. It was widely
reported in the mainstream media, including a report on the Nine O'Clock TV News
on RTE (the Irish national broadcaster), I was interviewed for numerous radio shows
and the project was widely featured in the print media. The title
NAMAland
has even
entered common usage as a descriptor for the post IMF bailout situation. In the midst
of this extended “15 minutes” of fame the project has more importantly succeeded
in focusing attention on its subject matter where more traditional approaches failed.
It overcame official attempts to limit information and discussion on the subject, and
has acted as a conduit through which concerns over the lack of transparency inherent
in NAMA could be expressed.
On one level it operated as a mobile app, a ready-to-hand source of information
locating NAMA properties, as a myriad of other apps locate coffee shops and
restaurants, gaining in excess of 65,000 users in the process. However as an
intervention, a physical dimension to the work was of the essence. The data
layer which was enabled though AR was only of significance when overlaid
over real space, this is the essential quality of AR, this connection between the
virtual geo-tagged dataset and the physicality of place. AR must of necessity
operate in conjunction with physical actions to be effective, augmenting space
rather than recreating or virtualising space, and as such is the ideal companion
for interventionist practices as it redefines the practices through extending and
supporting their essential aspects rather than substituting a less effective alternative.
The AR structure of the project was always designed to be an enabling framework
upon which a range of additional actions, interventions, discussions and so forth
could be based.
NAMAland
was extended to include real world events such as
walking tours, situated public discussion forums, public speaking engagements,
media coverage and individual interventions with the work itself being an amalgam
of all its constituent components. These were all supported and enabled through
the data layer made visible through the application of AR technology and offered
multiple points of entry and modes of engagement with the project which were not
necessarily technologically dependent. This ensured that the work remained open to
as broad a constituency as possible, including those without the requisite technology
to view the AR.
Indeed as the project disseminated it became clear that many of the people who
spoke to me of the project were not actually users, as they didn't have a phone
capable of running the application. Their experience of the project was second
hand, passed to them as a story which resonated as a tale of resistance. Somebody
had used mobile technology to reveal a list of NAMA properties despite efforts to
