ICTs and the Engineering of Encounters: A Case Study of the Development of a Mobile Game Based on the Geolocation of Terminals

For a long time, spatial mobility was just a means to an end. Even in the eyes of such a keen observer of cities as Simmel, industrial life led to a lengthening of distances, ‘which makes of every useless wait or travel an irretrievable time loss’ (Simmel 1989). Recently, social science studies of mobility have taken a different turn, arguing that mobility patterns should be understood with respect to an actor with motives, skills and instrumental resources pertaining to mobility, moving in an environment that ‘affords’ mobility in many ways. In this ‘paradigm of mobility’ (Sheller and Urry 2006b), places cannot be considered independently from the people that inhabit them, however fleetingly, and urban movement may be a creative experience by itself.