Beyond the Virtual Public Square: Ubiquitous Computing and the New Politics of Well-Being

Abstract

In this chapter Gregory Ulmer theorizes augmented reality, and ubiquitous computing in general, while John Craig Freeman presents examples of his work in place-based augmented reality public art and describes the work within the framework of electracy (the digital apparatus). Apparatus theory correlates technological innovations with the corresponding inventions in institutional practices, including individual and collective identity behaviours. Ulmer and Freeman, working with an electrate consultancy–the EmerAgency–test an augmented deliberative design rhetoric intended to overcome individual alienation from collective agency. It is an electrate equivalent of the ancient Theoria, a community practice in which a team of trusted citizens travelled to sites of events to sort out fact from rumour. Results of this theory tourism were reported in the public square and certified as truth. Theoria, augmented by literacy, became journalism–the fourth estate of a democratic society. The konsult practice described in this essay updates Theoria for a fifth estate with a new function supporting collective well-being, in the global experience of a potentially ubiquitous public square.