I believe that a key part of making a spatial argument is to situate it in the very geospatial context of the reader. I want to explore the possibility of doing this by inviting smart phone users to participate in this design research web app project.
“graff/it/i new york city” maps the graffiti that the city either scheduled to remove or recently have removed. The locations presented through the app combines and aggregates the graffiti locations data set from NYC OpenData with data collected by users of the app on the locations. The data that users submit may included photos, tags, and descriptions of the record’s location. Currently only photos of the graffiti locations may be posted.
Users can explore the data that the city generates by navigating between graffiti pending removal and graffiti that was removed. Details of the record can be retrieved. In addition, the user can explore possible paths that cleaning crews and street investigators navigated by tracking the record’s “spoor” – i.e. stringing together nearby records that were made on the same date.
This is a web app, so some functions are a little odd. To add photos, please download picup from the iTunes store in your iPhone (this may not be the same app for Android devices). Once you have opened the web app in Safari, you can save it to your home screen by clicking the “Add to Home Screen” menu under the “forward” button next to the bookmark button in the browser. To open the app point a qr-code reader on your smart phone to:
