Salvatore Iaconesi Luca Simeone

Technology Strategist Design Anthropologist

FakePress FakePress
via Gislieri 14 via Cutilia 17
00152 Rome 00183 Rome
Italy Italy
salvatore.iaconesi@artisopensource.net me@luca.simeone.name
++39 347 6054421 ++39 349 3612672

FakePress:

ubiquitous publishing and

next-step tools and practices for design

Synopsis:

“Technology enables a vision of the world in which people, spaces, architecture and objects

are interconnected, allowing for distributed flows of knowledge, information, experience,

relation, emotion. Starting from this scenario we created FakePress, a next-step publishing

house leveraging spimes, location-based technologies, distributed interactions, emotional and

experience design to instantiate new practices based on an ethnographic approach to the

multi-layered, interconnected, multi-authored, cross-medial reality. This paper presents the

research approach as well as three project instances: iSee, an augmented reality publication,

Ubiquitous Anthropology, a scientific publication created and experienced through location-

based technologies, and NeRVi, a global atlas of the scientific and artistic projects using

augmented reality techniques.”

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Motivation.

The curious gaze of the designer is probably the fundamental tool used in most of his

activities. Whether observing the world, or letting attention and focus be caught by people

and their behaviour, or thoughtfully researching relationships among bodies, spaces,

geometrical forms, sensorial stimuli, the gaze is the enactment/representation of the deep

desire/need to interact with the world and with its physical and immaterial inhabitants:

geometries, spaces, bodies, information, behaviours.

Technology currently offers several opportunities to satisfy this basic desire/need. Layering

the world with information, interactivity, contents, and possibilities for expression and

communication through augmented realities, spimes, location-based media and

gestural/natural interfaces are all realistic scenarios. The tools are available, allowing us to

transform the world into a hybrid reality that is explicitly, expressively and emotionally

composed through a multitude of voices, sounds, visions, gestures, shapes.

These scenarios offer incredible opportunities from various points of view: ethnographic,

psychological, philosophical, economic, relational, educational.

Problem statement.

Augmented realities, spimes, ubiquitous, wearable and location-based technologies define the

possibility of reconsidering the ways in which we communicate, interact, relate, behave,

including the ways in which we exchange, distribute, share, disseminate knowledge and

information. In this scenario the ideas of “learning”, “teaching” and “communicating” have

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been reinterpreted by extending the spaces and tools that can be used in these practices.

The definition of new grammars, new uses and new strategies hybridizes processes and

practices.

Under this perspective, design, learning, education and narratives change, turning into hybrid

disciplines that tend to adopt open, natively peer-to-peer, strategies capable of transforming

theorists and practitioners into publishers and communicators.

The research process presented in this paper focuses on a composite problem domain.

On one side: we are surrounded by change, evolution, progressive complexity. The

possibilities offered by technology to augment physical spaces, bodies, identities and

processes give rise to the need for reconsidering the form and substance of fundamental

questions regarding information, communication, architecture, social interaction, culture,

education, business. What changes in all these areas when places, spaces and objects

themselves are capable of coming alive, going beyond physical matter and embedding

information, digital interaction and communication spaces? This is currently at the center of

an intense international debate among interdisciplinary academics, designers, ethnographers,

entrepreneurs, politicians, activists, cultural producers and, in their own way, the general

public.

On the other side: we are living in a continuous state of ecosystematic crisis. According to the
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perspectives suggested by ecology - and, thus, focusing on interconnections and equilibriums Deleted: researches
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in dynamic systems in continuous, fluid, mutation, going beyond ambientalism - the state of Deleted: science is rooted in an
ecology perspective which is
focused on the analysis of
the global crisis cannot be reduced to a single cause, or even to a select number of drivers but investigates and in T

is a result of a continuous interaction among systems and the practices defined within them.

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Culture is, possibly, the most information-rich among these systems, and research into

cultural practices (culture-related production and dissemination, policies, business models)

allows observations to be made on the ways in which languages, behaviours and

phenomenologies change in a complex process where a progressively accelerating adoption

rate for technologies is shaping our conceptions of time, space, relations, emotions.

From this point of view we are facing times in which the concept of “publishing” will be

central to all human experiences: digital networks allow anyone to express their views by

publishing; commodities disappear and are replaced by services that are based on information

published digitally; architecture, objects and territories transmit information, through spimes

and ubiquitous technologies; and even physical production progressively becomes a

publishing process in which three-dimensional models can be disseminated to personal

fabricating devices.

We are describing environments built on multi-directional streams of information and

communication, creating networks whose nodes are objects, places, people, locations in

time/space, processes. These forms, suggested by currently adopted models of social

networks and digital communications, are shaped around the idea of multi-authorial streams

of information, of emergent processes and designs, of multi-stakeholder control processes.

Multiple voices coexist in overlapping spaces whose contents can be interpreted, reused,

redistributed in multiple ways.

Approach.

In our research, we explored these new spaces by investigating new forms that such

innovative practices can assume.

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We designed a next-step publishing house producing cross-medial, multi-author, open-ended

narratives that are built on constructions of networked, pluralistic, non-deterministic,

interpretative layers of reality through location-based, augmented reality, spime and

natural/gestural interfaces.

FakePress, the name of the publishing house, aims at a potential redefinition-through-

disarticulation of practices that refer to narratives, education, knowledge sharing and

distribution, communication, interaction, emotion and relation.

The research was carried out through a systematic approach assessing all the issues defined in

the problem domain, taken from technological and ethnographic points of view.

Building a significant evolution in publishing processes was a key element, embracing the

suggestions coming from the observation of technological and behavioural phenomenologies.

Furthermore, current global circumstances suggest the need for establishing a critical

dimension in such a process as the themes of ecology, sustainability, freedom of expression,

and the rights to knowledge and information clearly are and will be the main issues

determining social, economic and political change in coming years.

The research process started by posing several questions and defining a methodology

instrumental in seeking out potential solutions.

In this scenario, what is a Publisher? What processes does it enact? What are the media,

spaces and tools it can use?

Traditionally publishing houses select, filter and edit content before disseminating it. In the

process, the roles of the content producers and of the content receivers are established in

relation to one another.

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In FakePress, these concepts are maintained but also disassembled and reassembled following

a different logic, enacting a different set of processes and, within/among them establishing

new forms of relations which evolve along different, non-linear, axes in time, space and

activities.

In this reinterpretation of the editorial process, design starts off with imagining and

formalizing experiences, starting from a set of behavioural observations and a series of

axiomes:

 multi-authoriality, meaning that content is to be natively hosted in an environment

that assumes and allows for the com-presence of multiple voices, points of view and

layers for interpretation, at any time and place;

 interactivity, so that content can be updated, extracted, remixed, re-contextualized,

distributed, reviewed;

 open-endedness, and focus on continuous – or continuable – ongoing streams, more

than on complete narratives;

 sensoriality, also allowing for the new tactilities enabled by digital interactive

technologies, by natural and gestural interfaces, by interactive environments, by the

availability of digital infoscapes superimposed to the physical domain;

 ubiquity, and accessibility, leveraging mobile, wearable, location based technologies;

 sustainability and social significance, by enacting a critical evaluation process.

Axioms and behaviours are used to shape the publication, which can assume multiple

manifestations: mobile, location-based applications, devices, technological wearable

garments, websites, electronics, architecture or physical designs are all possible media used

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in this process.

Results.

The first three projects produced by FakePress are expressions of the aforementioned

considerations, from perspectives that are ethnographic and narrative.

The first one, Ubiquitous Anthropology, was created as a result of ethnographic research in

the Brazilian Mato Grosso, in an aldeia, a Bororo village near Merurì. Circumstances

allowed a group of anthropologists to observe a rare and complex funeral ritual in which the

body of the deceased is buried and then exhumed after several weeks to be subjected to

coloration, processing and transformation. In particular, the skull, after having been carefully

(and lovingly) cleaned, is sprinkled with red urucum, feathered with parrot plumes (arara)

and doused in fresh blood coming from cuts male and female participants inflict on

themselves as part of the ritual using piranha teeth.

The feathered skull thus transforms into a totemic arara, the primogenial ancestor: death

becomes a journey to the origin, towards what existed before birth according to a cyclical

conception1.

Many anthropologists have tried to affix the dizziness, fear and lovingly sad moments of this

macabre ritual to the pages of their accounts2.

However, these narratives always remain confined within a literary dimension: sometimes the

1 For an accurate (and polyphonic) description of the ritual, please see: Massimo Canevacci Ribeiro, “La linea
di polvere” (The line of dust), Meltemi, 2007
2 The most famous research on the Bororo (which also dedicates a limited space to the funeral) is that of
Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Le cru et le cuit” , Plon, 1964

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pages of a book do not account for the visual, kinesthetic, and auditory involvement of the

disturbances and thrills typical of ethnographic observation. The many, sometimes dissonant,

sometimes disorienting voices presented in the field and the many people encountered during

the research are translated into a prose that often represents a limited number of viewpoints.

The authority represented in ethnographic books is almost always that of the anthropologist,

who, in principle, observes, interprets, and describes. Ethnographic accounts and books are

rarely co-produced and co-signed together by the anthropologist and the observed subjects,

the so-called ‘natives’.

Contemporary critical anthropology has shown the limits of this ethnographic method, which

presents a monologic approach and does not do justice to the dialogic and polyphonic

dynamics of field research in which the world views, beliefs and habits of the anthropologist

meet (and collide) with those of the subjects studied and present in the contact zones 3.

According to these new currents of cultural anthropology, field research experiences and the

ethnographic accounts that follow should be opened toward forms of co-creation and multi-

authority in which the confines between the anthropologist-observer and the observed

subjects blur and in which all of the subjects present on the scene have the right (and the

possibility) to express their point of view and their own narratives.

The Ubiquitous Anthropology project aims to surpass the limits of traditional ethnography by

exploring new, plural forms of field research representation taking advantage of innovative

scenarios and technologies: location-based media, open-ended stories and emerging narrative

dynamics. The idea is to explore the configurations and potential of new publishing formats

that consider the ever-increasing diffusion of progressive devices (such as the iPhone) that

3 A classic text that explores the limits of ethnographic writing is James Clifford and George E. Marcus, ed.,
“Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography”, University of California Press, 1986

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allow cross-media geo-tagging practices and therefore the possibility of exploiting (and

publishing) media compositions of a various nature, linked to specific geographic

coordinates.

The second publication produced by FakePress, according to the lines of the research, is iSee,

a mobile augmented reality application that allows users to interact with the logos of products

found in shops and supermarkets. People using the application/publication can take a picture

of any logo and get instant information on its company’s social responsibility and

environmental practices. Individuals can interact by using the platform, thus turning logos

into discussion spaces as communication infrastructures on which to promote organic

products as alternatives to industrially-produced ones, or as opportunities to create dialogues

and information flows dealing with ecology, sustainability and alternative economies. The

iSee concept has been taken to the extreme, and is currently being used to design what is

called “Squatting supermarkets”: a commercial space in which each product becomes a

placeholder for a digital, narrative experience using Augmented Reality that individuals can

use to retrieve information about products’ histories, the people that produced them, the

companies’ social responsibility policies, and to participate in an open dialogue. 4

The third publication recently created by FakePress is NeoRealismoVirtuale (NeRVi), a global

atlas of scientific and artistic projects using augmented reality techniques. NeRVi is

browsable on the web, or by walking through cities and architecture, using a mobile location-

based application equipped with Augmented Reality components designed to populate urban

perspectives with relevant content, to experience and learn about augmented reality

experiments, performances and artworks directly where they have been created, in a mixed

media product that is both a scientific tool and a peculiar and immersive thematic travel

4 This version of the iSee platform will be used in November 2009, during the Piemonte Share Festival to turn
Turin's National Science Museum into a “Squatting Supermarket”

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guide.

Ubiquitous Publishing

In ethnographic terms, Ubiquitous Anthropology is the story of the Bororo funeral, as

observed and narrated (in a textual, auditory, and visual form) by the many subjects present in

the field in Merurì: anthropologists and video makers, Italian and Bororo. All of these

narrative fact boxes have been geo-localized and positioned on a navigable map.

As in an augmented reality, when approaching the village with an iPhone or walking toward

the Rio Vermelho or the Salesian mission, the Ubiquitous Anthropology display shows all of

the clips of the events that happened at that point: photographs, sounds recorded during the

ritual, notes and video sequences.

Ubiquitous Anthropology functions as a media compass, a multiplier of experiences, a

portable jukebox that can project informative layers on reality.

Naturally, it is not necessary to be physically present at the site to take advantage of the

media content present in the application. The media clips can be viewed at any time and in

any place by exploring the maps and clicking on the various sensitive areas. However, if one

is near the Bororo aldeia in Merurì, the system is able to show the user’s position on the map

and accompany him to the places coupled with media clips like a very special kind of tour

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guide.

The media clips are organized and made navigable according to different categories:

geographic coordinates (and therefore position on the map), author name, clip format (text,

image, video, audio), date and tag cloud (automatically generated by analyzing the titles of all

of the compositions).

The editorial design is open: any user can add his media clips, geo-locate them and, indeed,

endlessly extend the storylines of the ethnographic account.

Ubiquitous Learning

Ubiquitous Anthropology is a project whose potentiality is completely exploitable with the

latest generation cellular devices but all of the media compositions can also be viewed from a

web platform explorable with a common browser. The Bororo ritual is a central theme in

Massimo Canevacci’s Cultural Anthropology course at the La Sapienza University in Rome,

Italy, which is currently taught with an educational mix composed of lectures (with the help

of PowerPoint, images, and video) and a book, used as the exam text (4). The Ubiquitous

Anthropology application will complement the book and is offered as an experimental tool

that proposes innovative and creative learning pathways.

The availability of distributed and continuously updated knowledge sources challenges the

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classical canons of anthropological education which are usually focused on traditional

instruments (primarily books and lectures), concentrated in a specific phase of life and guided

by a limited number of institutions (generally a single university), chosen by the individual

student as his primary geographic (and formative) territory.

The explosion of a growing number of contributions available on the internet liberates the

creative possibilities of the student, who can articulate his education by circumventing

traditional geographic and temporal constraints, jumping from one source to another.

Cultural anthropology education will therefore extend its range of activities: from the

historicized institution, which produces and selects knowledge, to a dynamic organism,

immersed in the flows of new technologies as one of the principal hubs, in which students

can follow their personalized formative peregrinations.

On a more extended plane, Ubiquitous Anthropology, as a polyphonic distributive platform,

attempts to counterbalance those colonial, national and ethnic hierarchies that still play a

crucial role in communicational visibility. Today, the survival of the Bororo (and of many

other Brazilian ethnic groups) is threatened by the cultivation of the soybean, by petroleum

companies, by those who search for precious metals and by the wood industry: the media

does not seem to pay the necessary attention to this ongoing destructive action which is

slowly eroding the natural and social ecosystems of the Bororo. The requests for defense and

the political and social petitions of the Bororo are quite simply ignored by the government

and media institutions.

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In some small way, Ubiquitous Anthropology hopes to establish a space that is ready to

collect and disseminate these endangered voices.

Conclusions

FakePress is an on-going process and a real publishing house.

We constantly enact research and production processes on these issues and we currently hold

an international open-call for researchers, entrepreneurs and artists who wish to experiment

with us and this vision.

Bibliography

Massimo Canevacci Ribeiro, “La linea di polvere” (The line of dust), Meltemi, 2007

Jan Chipchase, "Everywhere", keynote for the CHI 2009 Conference, Boston, USA. 2009

Jan Chipchase, "Connecting the Unconnected", Stanford University, 2007

James Clifford and George E. Marcus, ed., “Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of

Ethnography”, University of California Press, 1986

Paul Dourish, "Where the Action Is: The Foundations of Embodied Interaction", The MIT

Press, 2004

Assaf Feldman, "ReachMedia - On the Move Interaction with Everyday Objects", Master of

Science in Media Arts and Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2004

Adam Greenfield, "Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing (Voices That

13
Matter)", New Riders Publishing, 2006

Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Le cru et le cuit” , Plon, 1964

David Merrill and Pattie Maes, "Invisible Media: Attention-sensitive Informational

Augmentation for Physical Objects", Seventh International Conference on Ubiquitous

Computing, Tokyo, Japan, 2005

Malcolm McCullough, "Digital Ground: Architecture, Pervasive Computing, and

Environmental Knowing", The MIT Press, 2005

William J. Mitchell, "Placing Words: Symbols, Space, and the City", The MIT Press, 2005

Navi Radjou, "R&D 2.0: Fewer Engineers, More Anthropologists", 2009

Deleted: Assaf Feldman,
"ReachMedia - On the Move
Interaction with Everyday
Clay Shirky, "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations", Objects", Master of Science in
Media Arts and Sciences,
Penguin Press, 2008 Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 2004 ¶
Massimo Canevacci Ribeiro, “La
linea di polvere” (The line of dust),
Steffen P. Walz, Rafael Ballagas, "Pervasive Persuasive: A Rhetorical Design Approach to a Meltemi, 2007¶
Jan Chipchase, "Everywhere",
keynote for the CHI 2009
Location-Based Spell-Casting Game for Tourists", 2007 Conference, Boston, USA. 2009 ¶
Jan Chipchase, "Connecting the
Unconnected", Stanford
University, 2007 ¶
Henry Jenkins, "Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide", NYU Press, James Clifford and George E.
Marcus, ed., “Writing Culture:
The Poetics and Politics of
2008 Ethnography”, University of
California Press, 1986¶
Deleted: Navi Radjou, "R&D
2.0: Fewer Engineers, More
Anthropologists", 2009 ¶
Deleted: Adam Greenfield,
Biographies: "Everyware: The Dawning Age of
Ubiquitous Computing (Voices
That Matter)", New Riders
Salvatore Iaconesi designs technological systems for arts, business and research, moving Publishing, 2006 ¶
Claude Lévi-Strauss, “Le cru et le
cuit” , Plon, 1964¶
interdisciplinarily through robotics, wearable computing, location based media, physical Malcolm McCullough, "Digital
Ground: Architecture, Pervasive
Computing, and Environmental
interfaces, and mixed-media interfaces. He internationally participates in festivals and events Knowing", The MIT Press, 2005 ¶
Deleted: Paul Dourish, "Where
the Action Is: The Foundations of
with performances and installations mixing bodies, technologies, places and practices in what Embodied Interaction", The MIT
Press, 2004 ¶
William J. Mitchell, "Placing
is called NeoRealismo Virtuale. Salvatore performs researches with various institutions in Words: Symbols, Space, and the
City", The MIT Press, 2005 ¶

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Italy, Mexico, Austria and Denmark, also holding lectures and workshops in various

universities and international conferences.

Luca Simeone is a Design Anthropologist and a contemporary entrepreneur. He leads projects

in which solutions are designed through ethnographic research methods. His past experiences

include the production of award-winning websites and cross-medial interaction design

projects for clients ranging from international brands to museums and institutions. Luca has

an extensive academic history featuring participation in scientific and commercial

publications and teaching and R&D experience at several universities in Rome, Naples and

Milan, Italy and New Delhi, India, on the subjects of Cultural Anthropology, Interaction

Design, Innovation, Psychology of emotions and Experience Design.

Authors' reference URLs

http://fakepress.net

http://www.neorealismovirtuale.com

http://www.artisopensource.net

http://luca.simeone.name

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