Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
This quest for the perfect match between
an (idealized and even mental) image of a place
and its experience
in situ
(the quest for authen-
ticity: MacCannell, 1976) can be illustrated by
the use of postcards as touristic icons (Chalfen,
1979; Sontag, 1979; Edwards, 1992) on the
one hand (not using own photography to show
the visual 'essence' of the tourists' experience)
and by geolocating photos as a technical
approach to match physical space with the
imagined on the other. Postcards (Markwick,
2001; Albers and James, 1988) have a quite
long history in showing the traveller's intended
visual experience to the ones staying at home -
this social and visual construction permits a very
high level of accordance between the intended
and observed visual image, since for the recipi-
ent both only exist as visual projections (in one's
mind/on paper: postcard). Social networking
communities offering geolocated pictures are a
new phenomenon that is spreading quickly.
1
Here satellite navigation is used to capture the
position from where a photo was taken, some-
times even the direction of the lens while taking
the photo (see Smith
et al
., 2000, p. 330, for a
novel approach to history of urban space and
famous places by images). Some of today's nav-
igation devices like mobile phones have cam-
eras that record the GPS co-ordinates into the
photo, allowing a 'navigation by pictures' (e.g.
'take me back to where I took this picture').
The recipient can explore places of interest
remotely over the net from the (visual) per-
spective of street level (unlike Google Earth,
which uses a bird's-eye view applying aerial
and satellite photography) or go directly to the
locations coded into the pictures to relive the
visual experience.
visual essence of urban space can be encountered
remotely using sophisticated rendering approaches
(3D-Laserscans of city space
2
) to immerse photog-
raphy (360° panoramic scenes), grass-roots visual-
izations and DIY projects. Introduced in 2007,
Google's new feature
Street View
adds 360° pan-
oramic view from street level to the mapping of
roads and hybrid satellite views.
Analysis of the gaze is typically done in a tech-
nical way using eyetracker, for example, in mar-
keting studies and psychology. There is a full
range of these devices from desktop systems,
stereo-trackers for depth analysis of the gaze to
lightweight models that can be used in a real
environment, like urban space or shopping malls
(Fig. 6.1).
In particular, psychologists have used
computer-aided methods of tracking the individ-
ual gaze by looking at the eye's movements - a
technique not used in social sciences so far.
Using this technique, cameras track the
oculomotor behaviour (using refl ection from
the eye's lens artifi cially illuminated by IR light),
while a scene-camera shows what the partici-
pant is looking at. Calibrating both, it is possible
to watch the eye movement in real-time and
capture which elements of a scene were gazed
at in temporal order and for how long. Eye-
tracking can be classifi ed as a technical pictorial
analysis by following the gaze. The statistical
analysis about fi xation period, speed of move-
ment and division of visual attention only helps
to interpret what and probably why some ele-
ments were gazed upon and others were not.
In this analytical framework, the observer's
eye movement is in the centre of interest and
serves as a repository for new fi ndings - inside
the brain the process of image interpretation is
taking place, metaphorically operating as a
black box. The semantic importance of visual
fragments can only be estimated from the time
they were looked at. With different methods the
gaze itself comes into focus, allowing us to raise
knowledge by qualitative approaches about the
interchange of gazes between locals and tourists
(Maoz, 2006) or the gendered background of
Visual Encounter of Urban Space
Taking the quest for matching one's own expecta-
tions, mental images and professional images with
the real-life experiences of visiting a place seriously,
1
See e.g. EveryTrail, Locr, Mappr (Beta), Panoramio (owned by Google), Plazez-known-where, Triptracker.
2
This is done for administrative and security issues (training simulations; Löw
et al
., 2007), but for purposes of
tourism industries as well. Here 3D fl ights through city space and virtual walks are visualized, e.g. regarding
Berlin the run of the famous wall can be displayed, even 'through' buildings placed there in the meantime.
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