Geotagging the world

I enjoy the feeling of Flaneuring through Flickr, I can travel through the eyes of cyborgs narratives around the world, while escaping the working day realities. 

The  aim this week was for me to be found and for me to find a community that interact regularly through comments and regular photo updates. As described in McNeill (2012) " The networked self must be searchable, able to be found on the network". I took a leap of faith and found a community that was in regular contact with each other (as many communities of interest have very little contact),  their life narrative's are documented by adding up to 7 photos’s a week onto the community site.  To be accepted into this group, I had to write a little something about myself and why I would like to join their group only to be declined due to the community not accepting anyone else, leaving me feeling a little dis-empowered. The power here is controlled by the community administrator.

I continued to flounder through other communities, requesting to be added onto their network which felt like a to and fro of power.  I send the request hoping that they will accept so that a connection can be created.

I kept in mind what Bayden advised on my posting last week, to find other ways to make the most contact with other users. I stumbled across the Maps tag where user items can be geotagged.  When on the Maps page there is a layout of most recent pics at the bottom of the page with the world map set behind. The user can scroll over the latest pics, a star pops up to the place where the pic was taken on the world map. Double clicking on the pic, it allows the opportunity of making a comment and sending a friend request. The main area in the world marked is in Europe, I’m not clear on how to have my location mapped at this stage and it doesn't seem like a true assessment of who in the world is using the the network as Australia is not marked. By using this process of utilising the map to join new networks allows more scope to engage with creative people around the world.

 

The Narratives in Flickr are spoken through pictures, Va Luyn “Networked narratives can be empowering because human – machine interfaces allow for playfulness with form and meaning” like the saying goes "Pictures speak a thousand words".

Reference List

 Van Luyn, A. (2013). BA1002: Our Space: Networks, narratives and the making of place, Lecture 4: Networked Narratives and Power. Retrieved from http://learnjcu.edu.au

McNeill, L. (2012). There is no "I" in network: Social networking sites and post human auto-biography. In Biography, 104-108.