Keynote by Tristan Thielmann, Geomedia International Conference, Karlstad, Sweden, 7-10 May 2019
Today, the quiddity of what can be called a „digital place“ is interpreted by distributed software applications. This locational and situational understanding arises from how smart devices, above all smartphones, see the world based on their sensory perception. It corresponds to the classical understanding of place that was already described in 1977 by the influential geographer, Yi-Fu Tuan, who argued, “place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place.“ According to this, space allows movement, while meaning is given to places by resting, stopping and movement dropping off. This kind of understanding of place has become the focus of geomedia studies through the observation and description of mobile digital media practices, with the help of Augmented Reality, among other aids.