ABSTRACT
How we represent space has everything to do with how we embody that space. Our concepts of culture, identity, and agency all spring from our understanding of bodies’ relationships to the spaces they exist in and move through. Such understandings are conceived out of the various ways space is represented and visualized. The previous chapter focused specifically on my definition of embodiment for mobile media culture. Here, I want to focus on embodiment’s counterpart: spatiality. Since embodiment and space are indelibly linked together, it is important to develop a strong understanding of our usage of the term “mobile media space.” Such an understanding is undoubtedly linked to the various ways space is represented on mobile devices, representations that a community comes to rely on to interact with pervasive computing space. In order to define the various ways space is produced in our mobile media era, I will draw on several examples that demonstrate the various ways we embody and practice space. These examples are primarily rooted in ideas of mapping: from mapping geographic regions to mapping ideas and concepts in word clouds, from mapping information and visualizations onto landscapes through augmented reality applications to mapping disaster zones through site-specific text messages. Mapping, as a means of representing and practicing space (and the cultural capital that is so intimately connected to this concept), serves as a key example in the exploration of what “space” means in our embodied practices of mobile technologies.
