Be neo-nomad…

Toujours en épluchant Libé… je lis page 20, une histoire : Le touriste étranger pisté… : « […] Tracé à l’aide du signal émis par son téléphone portable en veille, ou de ses paiements par carte bancaire aux péages d’autoroute, le touriste étranger est piste a son insu. Car lui aussi relève de ‘l’intelligence économique’, devenue indispensable au marketing du tourisme comme a l’aménagement du territoire. Très légalement, l’organisme ODIT France (Observation, Développement et Ingénierie Touristique) collecte, grâce aux cartes utilisées dans 500 péages, les données pour 17 pays. Volume et heures des flux, fréquentations zone par zone, et nationalités vérifiées par comptage des plaques minéralogiques, le tout recoupé avec le signal des portables. La dernière enquête en 1996, avait été complexe et coûteuse : 3,6 millions d’euros. Contre 80,000 euros pour ce système, qui offre des données bien mieux actualisées aux statisticiens. » (AFP)

On my way back to Boston, reading the French newspaper Libération, Samedi 8 et Dimanche 9 Avril 2006, pages 39 to 41 (couldn’t find the week-end section online, sorry! so… get the pdf of the full journal) the articles of Christophe Alix on ubiquitous computing in the urban environment mentioning the project (find the video) ubibus of the INRIA which is the French National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control!… He gives us many links to look at like the online news on GPS: businessmobile; another INRIA project on ubicomp, Galiléo, the European GPS project… I guess I should give my thesis to read to Christophe ;)

A Beiruti friend has just sent me the info! Thank you, thank you!! Re_dis_trans: Voltage of Relocation and Displacement… I guess I will be back on time to Boston, to take the road again and check it out in NYC :)
Exhibit curated by curated by Aniko Erdosi, April 12 - May 20, 2006
“What happens after acts of relocation and displacement? How do these acts influence our personal lives, our mental states, or our cultural perceptions? These questions are relevant in the context of “local-versus-global” intellectual discourse, but they are much more significant in our everyday lives, in which we constantly seek greater mobility. Individuals and groups are relocating themselves geographically. Objects are displaced locally, data and information transferred digitally, and points of view refocused intellectually. How do these acts rearrange a situation, a narrative or an ethos? What happens to these material and immaterial things within their new contexts? How does it shift our illusions about the permanence of things? And most importantly, can we displace our focus without losses?”

April 1, 2006… while on the plane I am reading the NYtimes articles chosen by LeMonde: Learning How to Find a Little Bit of Home Away From Home which tells us that “the best way to cope with homesickness is to bring along mementos that evoke the comfort of home, like a digital l image of your dog on your laptop screen or a tape-recorded message from a child, Dr. Turovsky said. Psychologists call these keepsakes “transitional objects,” though they may colloquially be thought of as security blankets.” (article by Perry Garfinkel) and again Travelers’ Illnesses: The Souvenirs Nobody Wants which gives us an idea of the lovely diseases one can bring back (for example the curious Larva Migrans “which is caused by a hookworm that usually penetrates the foot, creating an itchy, creeping eruption as the worm moves under the skin.” It has definitly some link with the BIO… (affaire à suivre) The other article, Rituals of Travelers to Ward Off a Sickness reminds us of how enclosed the environment we travel in are… Anyway, it seems also that “crowd and high-tech gadgets make travel an ordeal.” Can’t find the articles online… too jetlag :)