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Mar 12Liked by Spencer Chang

talking about 'local connection' i remember falling in love with this back then: https://geniusloci.com/

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oh wow I love this. im curious if you remember the first experience you encountered one and what it was like?

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Mar 11·edited Mar 11Liked by Spencer Chang

This is really neat. I love the concept of computing shrines. It feels to me like something that you can stumble upon and interact with might be the most magical-feeling of 'shrines'

My mind immediately jumps to a big installation, but tech more like QR codes and NFC might be a lot closer to a 'shrine' than something like a public-interactive kiosk. The reason being the latter tends to end up feeling klunky and less 'fun' than something that's more accessible, like the aforementioned NFC and QR.

I made prototype of something like a public kiosk for a hackathon late last year, that might be interesting. I'm sure I'll get marked as spam if I post a link, but if you search 'Dreamages Presentation' on youtube, you should see it under my handle. We were envisioning a small box with a small screen, maybe strapped to a telephone pole that you might stumble upon on a quiet city block. It would ask you if you want to share a story on the screen, and if you press the screen to confirm you'd like to interact with it, give you some sort of prompt, trying to get a small story out of you.

The AI portion of the demo was silly, but that kind of interaction with technology where it doesn't feel like a normal user-computer interaction made me think of it as a potential 'shrine'

Another thing that reminds me of a computer shrine is a QR code I stumbled upon recently, stickered to a telephone pole next to a bike trail that said "Do not scan"

I have a picture of it, but I have no idea where the code actually would send one to. For once in my life, I followed the instructions.

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oh wow i just watched your presentation on Dreamages and it's a lovely idea! A small box strapped to a telephone pole is the exact sort of moodboard vibe I've been thinking of (my inspiration image is a birdhouse nestled in a tree).

I'd love to see any inspo images you have / that picture of the QR code you stumbled upon. Can you email me?

Thank you for sharing. it's really fascinating to hear about prior work in this space.

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Yeah sure! Shoot me an email at my youtube handle/this handle @gmail. I'll send you the QR image. The hackathon idea was just something we brainstormed the day before the hackathon, but I really enjoyed the concept. For me, stumbling on something like that late one night, downtown, possibly as I came out of a bar would be the best thing ever.

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