Saul Albert

Lucrative Media

Everyone is used to paying for technologically mediated communication. Phone calls, post, emails, sms, data transit of any sort is metered at many points on the 'edges' (ie. consumer layers) of networks, while larger sums of money and in-kind services are exchanged in higher network layers. The obscure geography of the network (where do those cables go?) hides how value flows through these networks, who gets paid and who pays, and with what financial, cultural or political currencies. Locative media, because it mediates both communication and location, can start to dig up those cables, reveal how and where value flows through them, and place them in an historical context.

Bio:

I write, code, talk, teach, and learn at and with:The People Speak, University of Openess, Twenteenth Century. Current interests as of 09/11/03 are: librarians, cartography, self-institutions, foaf & semweb, going out to play and personal neologisms.