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Sunday, 19 May 2013

Foursquare: the city by and for the citizens


“You have to allow yourself to be developed by the developments”.  This sentence from Arjen Mulder preludes the movement from the “Post-position” (or post-modern attitude of seeing the changes from outside) to a “Trans-attitude”. So, what is Transurbanism? How can we define a Digital City? With the example of Foursquare, I will explain how Digital Cities engage citizens in building new experiences, meanings and images of the city. These new cities are made by and for the citizens.


According to Mulder, “What was once a place, the city, has now become a brand, a logo, a townscape which itself consists of clusters of brands and logos (…) The city is a collection of activities instead of a material structure”. Indeed, Foursquare strengthens the capitalist system watching the city as a product and the user as a productive consumer. So, how can we seen it as a tool for citizens’ appropriation?

In my case, when I open Foursquare, what I see is Nijmegen, the place where I am, and its main districts and streets. I can also see marks for the thirty more popular places. However, I can choose to see a completely different Nijmegen, a city covered with food establishments, night life, art or shops, or a Nijmegen full of friends conversing and meeting. But, what is more important, I can build my own Nijmegen tagging my location, documenting my places, adding my photos and leaving my experiences.


The Digital City is then built egocentrically around the citizen. It is conceived as a “micro-space” instead of a big unknown map of monuments and districts. Map-makers and urban designers have been key actors in the building of empires, economies and identities. They have determined how people move and via which routes. But with mobile mapping these hierarchies that have built the city are dissipating and are being replaced by the desire of  “amateurs mappers” to have deeper conversations about what spaces mean to them. Indeed, multiple users work together on the same map presenting diverse narratives around particular locations. They share tips and report complaints and recommendations. 

Therefore, the main point of Foursquare is not that it helps us exploring and discovering the city suggesting things to do, places to eat or what to see, but rather it has a decisive role to play in motivating and empowering citizens. Consequently, Foursquare contributes to the shift from representative cartography to performative cartography blurring the line between mapping practices and lived experiences. With Foursquare, the city is not a product anymore, but a landscape where experiences are written. This is the Transurbanism mentioned by Mulder: “A design process in which the highly informed character is used as a design resource by that environment itself”.

To sum up, the virtual world replaces the physical world allowing us to live in the Jameson's term “hyperrealities”, such as Foursquare, where we can participate through leaving our virtually marks, creating new understandings and images, seeking out new lines and possibilities and interrogating the fixed structures and hierarchies that have built the city. With Foursquare, users look around with another vision and they behave in a different way feeling more engaged with the environment, with their friends and with the whole community of Foursquare. They map out a different city and meanwhile they change themselves.

 REFERENCES:

  • De Certeau, M. The Practice of Everyday Life. Chapter VII: Walking in the City (1984) University of California Press, Berkeley.
  •  Sassen, S. “Reading the City in a Global Age”, in: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin & Sabine Niederer (eds.) Urban Screens Reader (2009) Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, pp. 29-44.
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1 comment:

  1. Unknown8 June 2013 at 05:05

    Foursquare:

    Your essay topic is interesting and gives a different point of view on the use of the mobile phone and social medias.
    However, your introduction is not very clear. You are starting good with a quote that appears to be in relation with your essay title. But then you introduce a notion without defining it. It gives the feeling you are jumping from one idea to another because you have too much to say. You first define "post-position", which is good, but then you pass to "trans-attitude" and you don't define it. In your final essay, try to provide a definition of this concept.
    Moreover, your problematics are good but try to link them more to your introduction. Start, for example, with saying that, I invent, with the apparition of web medias, people have started to talk about transurbanism and digital cities. ANd then you set your problematics.
    Your hypothesis is well structured and is relevant to the topic.
    Your argumentation parts are clear, I don't have much to say about that. I find it interesting that you provide your personal point of view and experience on the matter and take yourself as an example. Some readers might have never used or been confronted to Foursquare before.
    You provide the definition of Mulder of Transurbanism and that is good. Your conclusion is well brought. Try to include an opening question in your final paper.

    Some grammatical mistakes:
    "So, how can we seen it as a tool for citizens’ appropriation?" > how can we SEE it
    "I can also see marks for the thirty more popular places." > for the thirty MOST
    "to live in the Jameson's term “hyperrealities” " > In Ø Jameson's term
    "through leaving our virtually marks" > through our virtual marks

    Yorhlie Langevin

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