Cell phones: a digital cartography of São Paulo

Abstract

The fundamental function of maps has always been to understand, interpret, and represent the world. Therefore, maps have a communication role, as a language. As communication tool, maps spatialize the interaction of social, economic and cultural urban realities in a graphic expression that provides the very meaning of urban systems. The aim of this paper is to report an academic study involving digital interface design graduate students. They investigated the role of locative media as potential instruments for registering and mapping experiences, observations and perceptions of urban life. This study considers that students can stimulate interactions across the city, whether, directly, in its physical space or, indirectly, through interfaces such as cell phone applications. The project also sought to discuss the cell phone as a producer of new languages, since instead of being merely a telephone it combines the functions of different media and can produce images, videos, sounds etc.