{"id":2892,"date":"2024-08-27T21:49:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T01:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/?page_id=2892"},"modified":"2024-11-01T16:27:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T20:27:58","slug":"surprisingly-low-tech","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/playfulcity.net\/go\/ebow\/surprisingly-low-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprisingly Low-Tech: Ideas & Hybrid Starting Points"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<< Back to EBOW tools and design tactics<\/a><\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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In the hunt for alternative tools, we provide a few simple tricks and alternative technologies for connecting the physical and digital. Our goal is to stretch your imagination about what technology can mean for engaging beyond our walls<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

>> Jump to our starting points<\/a> for (1) Messages and videos that play from a yard sign<\/strong> — media QR codes; (2) Puppet master by text<\/strong> — e.g., using Google Voice; (3) Wayfinding a story<\/strong> — guerrilla signs, including with Google Maps; (4) Branching stories with texts and photographs<\/strong> — using Twilio Studio; (5) Storytelling boxes with a laptop (cardboard + branching slides; (6) Photography hunts with semi-public groups (cameraphone + Flickr)<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our philosophy: Appropriate and remix<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What first looks like magic can come from unexpected uses of technology. We celebrate low-tech and surprising combinations of physical and digital. There are more possibilities than you might think. The hybrids of physical and digital are multiplying, and the combinations are exponential. A low-tech approach is partly about power and empowerment. Our approach echoes movements like tactical urbanism, transmedia storytelling, maker cities, and technological appropriation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Edge and core: Innovation across the divide<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ironically, we see breakthroughs coming from low and high-tech. For example, we built a custom game engine \u2013 but it also helped us identify surprising uses of existing tools. We can choose to view forms like text messaging as more than “old” technology, and the evidence supports this: we can connect to ChatGPT, turn on smart lights, or even control a water fountain with text messages and voice trees. Much of this we discovered through our experiments with Hive Mechanic<\/a>, our custom engine, and by looking organically at what libraries and museums and artists have made (e.g., see our tasting menu<\/a>). Our general approach is to avoid specialty apps, and to look instead for bottom up tools and innovation that comes from innovative ways to connect the pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting points — know where to look<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1) Messages and videos that play from a yard sign (media QR codes)<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Imagine a yard sign with a QR code, but instead of launching a website, scanning the code provided a single piece of media \u2013 like an address, the photograph of a treasure map, or a video with a secret character who tells you the next clue. One example: our “hunt with no cell signal<\/a>.” <\/p>\n\n\n

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