A Day in New York City: how mobile technology allowed me to narrate (ie, relate the significance beyond the activities) from Michael Gallagher on Vimeo.
This post falls a little far from academic, but it still advances my general thesis that mobile technology has changed the way that we not only interact with our worlds, but how we might be inclined to express that interaction. It is an augmentative technology that allows me to express my appreciation of people, places, and experience in fairly complex ways. With or without this technology, all narratives are nothing without context so let me set the stage.
Context is King: Our Route
- Purpose: to get a spousal visa (for me) at the Korean Consulate
- My wife and I took the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) from Manhasset to Penn Station
- We walked to where I thought the Korean Consulate was located at 45th and 1st Avenue (wrong)
- We walked to where the Korean Consulate actually was at 57th and Park Avenue
- We took the 6 train from 59th and Lexington to Bleeker Street
- We walked to Russ & Daughters on Houston Street
- We walked to a bar nearby, ate our bagels (mine was a Heebster, my new favorite food in all the world), and drank a beer
- We walked to Washington Square Park and watched the world go by
- We took the A Train from 4th Street back to Penn Station
- We took the LIRR home to Long Island
Content: The Media
Context: The Emotion and Significance (the meaning) of the experience went beyond the activities themselves
The day was beautiful. It was sunny. New York City didn’t bother me as it normally might. The dirt didn’t affect me. The energy seemed infectious. The parks were full of people in a lazy late Friday afternoon kind of way. The doors of the bars were open and inviting. The food at Russ & Daughters was primordially good. The plane flew into the video I was recording on the way home. The whole day was a litany of infectious serendipity. And the mobile technology allowed me to record, compose, and disseminate that. It improved my capacity for relating a story of a good day, a perfect day.
View Larger Map