‘Alternative Ways of Being’: Reimagining Locative Media Materiality through Speculative Fiction and Design

Following the ‘material turn’ in media studies and a growing intersection with posthuman philosophies, theorists and practitioners in the field of ‘locative media’ have recently sought to make more explicit and visible the underlying material infrastructure and processes of location-aware technologies. These approaches, we argue, concentrate on two, interrelated layers of locative media materiality: the ‘infrastructure’ itself and its socio-political consequences; and the material relations between human and non-human elements that act upon one another to create the ‘performance’ of locative media. These approaches offer a vital and necessary challenge to the predominantly human- and user-centric focus of existing locative media studies. To date, however, they have been focused on rendering visible the infrastructure and performance of locative media as it presently exists; and still remain centred around the human body as the site and metaphor for understanding this materiality. In this paper, we further complicate this human centricity around the infrastructural and performative layers of locative media to challenge and reimagine the role of the human in locative media art and practice. Drawing on the traditions of speculative fiction and design, we propose fiction, design, and world-building as methods for developing imaginaries and alternative futures that expand the potential for locative media to be reframed from a non-human centric perspective. Such an approach emphasises creativity and imagination, in addition to purely empirical knowledge of locative technologies and processes; and allows for a more speculative, playful, and questioning approach to this materiality, taking into account not only ‘what is’ but also ‘what could be’. Through a discussion of two experimental projects undertaken by one of the authors of this paper, we advocate opening up locative media studies to encompass speculation about its alternative and future potentialities.