Geomedia Definition

Author: Francesco Lapenta

Published in June 26, 2008
Hyperlink: http://beingdigital.org/2008/06/26/define-geomedia-and-web-30/

This is how I define GeoMedia:

GeoMedia, are electronic media that rely on precise location systems to integrate location based
data with user generated contents and activities. They are not new media per se, but platforms that
merge existing technologies (Electronic Media + the Internet + Geo-Location Technologies) in a
new mode of data association and generation.

GeoMedia are not the sole collection of archived location based data, but an instrument that
associates these existing data with a live geographical position in a personally activated and/or
socially maintained data exchange (communication). Electronic Media are used to create/receive
data, the Internet to transmit them, and the Geo-location technologies to position them; GeoMedia
articulate these information in a live communication process.

GeoMedia are the technological platforms on which WEB 3.0 behaviours merge and expand: If
WEB 1.0 can be seen as the initial move towards the simple transfer of content (Image, Sound,
Text) to a new medium and digital delivery system. WEB 2.0 has seen the re-organization of such
distribution of content on the basis of existing and developing social networks. In the new
ecosystem interaction itself is transformed into data. WEB 3.0, based on the development of new
social-networking applications, has its biggest momentum in the progressive integration of location
based data in the communication process.

GeoMedia are to Space what the Watch is to Time. They regulate behaviour and coordinate
interactions. They are a fundamental dimension of mediated interaction. GeoMedia regulate and
generate capital, and are the predictable outcome of the expansion of capital. The move from the
systematic capitalization of time (sanctioned by the Universal Time and the Standard Time) to the
systematic informatization and re-capitalization of Space.

GeoMedia on the one hand reduce the distance between the Real and the Hyperreal (Baudrillard),
they create yet another link between the represented (the object) and its representation (its
simulation, its image), knotting them together at a certain time and location. On the other hand they
increase their distance by rendering the former (the Real) a complementary but not necessary part of
what we do with the latter (its representation). This processes further enhances the mimic, and the
independent qualities of the simulation and contribute to the construction of the Hyperreal, a world
of parallel, but different, signification systems (Image, Music, Text) in which we live parallel lives.

Preferred Reference System:

Lapenta, Francesco, June, 26, 2008, “GeoMedia: Looking Back at 2008 and the Early
Developments of WEB 3.0”, Draft June 2008, www.beingdigital.org

Check the special issue on the subject with full article and other articles on the subject

Special Issue:
Locative Media and
the Digital
Visualization of
Space, Place and
Information
Visual Studies:
Volume 26 Issue 1
March 2010
Editor: Francesco
Lapenta

hyperlink:

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=g931006416~db=all

Guest Editor’s Introduction

Locative media and the digital visualisation of space, place and information, Pages 1 – 3
Author: Francesco Lapenta
Articles
Sensory digital photography: re-thinking ‘moving’ and the image, Pages 4 – 13
Author: Sarah Pink

Geomedia: on location-based media, the changing status of collective image production and
the emergence of social navigation systems, Pages 14 – 24
Author: Francesco Lapenta

The algorithmic turn: photosynth, augmented reality and the changing implications of the
image, Pages 25 – 35
Author: William Uricchio

What is visualisation? Pages 36 – 49

Author: Lev Manovich

Is music becoming more visual? Online video content in the music industry, Pages 50 – 61
Author: Fabian Holt

The lie of the land: Mark Monmonier on maps, technology and social change, Pages 62 – 70
Author: Rob Walker