Presentation for Local and Mobile Conference in March, 2012.

1. Maxwell Foxman
New York University
Media, Culture & Communication
mhf223@nyu.edu
Website: www.maxwellfoxman.info
FINDING YOUR PLACE
HOW MOBILE GAMES AND SOCIAL MEDIA CAN
REDEFINE CLIMATE CHANGE AND COMMUNITY

2. CLIMATE BALANCE THROUGH
PLAY
• Climate Collapse within 5
Years
• Climate as network
• Global connectivity in the
digital age
• Climate effects a collective
of humans and non-humans
• Climate is effected by
humans predominantly in the
Anthropocene

3. A THEORETICAL HISTORY OF PLAY
• Play is expenditure or “waste”
• The potlatch can act as a model of an economy of
play
• We must create a “state of play”
• Play has been deployed throughout political
movements
• Occupy Wall Street’s human microphone
• Belgrade’s protests against propaganda
• Games are an “environment” for play

4. PROXIMAL COMMUNICATION
• This can be defined as communication of a user’s
presence in a particular place and time.
• Typified in social media applications such as
Foursquare
• “Broadcasted” throughout mobile networks

5. “GAMING FOR GOOD”
• Joint contest of Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project
and consultancy group PSFK
• Sees games as a new method of communication
and way to affect change
• The contest deploy “gamification tools that
individuals, communities, organizations and nations
can use to embed this new reality [of climate
collapse]” (Gore)
• The project envisioned games as a new means of
communing and affecting climate change, where
previous traditional national and international
efforts had failed

6. GREENSQUARE

7. CLIMATE REALITY PATROL

8. SPROUT

9. REALITREE

10. STRENGTHS OF REALITREE
• Visualizing the
wellness of the local
environment
• Mobile application
& visual display
• Data from both
users and public
sources
• Perpetually must be
kept alive

11. WHY REALITREE WORKS
• Perpetual use
• Potential for global engagement
• Potential for visualizing climate collectivity
• Focused less on “reward” than expenditure
• Simple design and potential for quick “maximum
grip”
• Utilizes both mobile and local components within its
design concept
• Virtual trees in physical space
• Mobile application to engage with trees

12. REALITREE IN REALITY
• Heavy cost to
deploy at a large
scale
• Keeping users
engaged is critical
• Conflicts in local
and global
engagement
• Necessity for
iterative design

13. SOCCKET
A PLAY PRODUCT IN REALITY

14. LOCALITY AND MOBILITY WITH PLAY
• The Role of Local • The Role of Mobility
• Play is individualized • Climate can only be
• Locality must be understood in terms
understood in terms of network
of climate • Local elements can
• Play and games work in concert with
allow for a climate through
convergence of mobile technology
locality and mobility • Mobility provides the
in terms of climate structure for local
play

15. FUTURE IMPLICATIONS OF PLAYING
FOR CLIMATE BALANCE
• Play provides the means of establishing perpetual
activity on behalf of the climate.
• Mobile technology provides a structure for
perpetual play on a global scale
• Mobile technologies proffer a sense of place and
presence in the larger context of the climate
• Mobile technologies proffer a sense of collectivity
and visualization of the environment
• Mobile technologies can induce a specific set of
practices
• Further study is required to test such products.