From Cyber to Hybrid

Abstract

Hybrid spaces arise when virtual communities (chats, multiuser domains, and massively multi-player online role-playing games), previously enacted in what was conceptualized as cyberspace, migrate to physical spaces because of the use of mobile technologies as interfaces. Mobile interfaces such as cell phones allow users to be constantly connected to the Internet while walking through urban spaces. This article defines hybrid spaces in the light of three major shifts in the interaction between mobile technology and spaces. First, it investigates how the use of mobile technologies as connection interfaces blurs the traditional borders between physical and digital spaces. Second, it argues that the shift from static to mobile interfaces brings social networks into physical spaces. Finally, it explores how urban spaces are reconfigured when they become hybrid spaces. For this purpose, hybrid spaces are conceptualized according to three distinct but overlapping trends: hybrid spaces as connected spaces, as mobile spaces, and as social spaces.

Everyday life and locative play: an exploration of Foursquare and playful engagements with space and place

“…In this vein, the 'phoneur', as a concept for approaching mobile phone use in urbanity, with its focus on consumerism, is reassessed in light of Foursquare, with this focus effectively lessened through the inculcation of digitally mediated play. The development of 'hybrid space ' (de Souza e Silva, 2006) has allowed the 'playeur' to symbolically rework quotidian structures. As a symptom of this symbolic oscillation, and while rooted in a desire for points, badges and mayorships, the 'playeur' moves through his or her environment following modified routes and inhabiting new places.…”

A agregação das Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação ao espaço público urbano: reflexões em torno do Projeto CyberParks – COST TU 1306

“…É evidente que essa é uma tarefa árdua e exige tenacidade e obstinação daqueles que aceitaram essa responsabilidade, pois ela pode incluir tantas facetas quanto níveis de entendimento, considerando a multiciplidade de usos e usuários, crenças, valores, representações e significados que os espaços públicos incorporam ou podem incorporar. A esse pressuposto atrela-se ainda o conceito de mídia locativa (locative media), já que o uso e a percepção do espaço estão fortemente vinculados a um espaço especifico (Souza & Silva, 2006). Assim, um Cyberpark constitui um novo tipo de paisagem urbana, na qual os elementos naturais e tecnológicos se misturam para gerar experiências sociais híbridas com o intuito máximo de melhorar a qualidade de vida da população.…”

Understanding Yik Yak: Location-based sociability and the communication of place

“…People embed location in Instagram photos (Hjorth and Pink, 2014), share location on Facebook (Bertel, 2013;Wilken, 2014), use location to find people on dating applications like Grindr (Licoppe, et al, 2016), and organize search results on location-based review applications like Google Places and Yelp (Barreneche and Wilken, 2015;Wilken, 2014). As has argued, to understand location-based mobile applications, and indeed hybrid space (Silva, 2006), one must both appreciate the information accessed through the application and how physical space influences that information. Or to put it differently, location-based mobile media of various types can become a "lens through which the spatialities of urban space can be viewed" [6].…”

“…The GPS functionality of smartphones means that digital information can now be tethered to specific locations, just as it can be accessed on the move. For Silva (2006) this intermingling of physical world environments with digital space has produced what she refers to as 'hybrid space.' As Saker and Evans (2016b) suggest, this 'hybrid space ' "[gives] rise to new embodied experiences and social connections in place" [5].…”