I've been telling students in my field methods class that we're so surrounded by texts, we don't even notice them. I've suggested that they take a walk around their neighborhood and notice the texts - and think about how different the neighborhood would be without them. Normally I think of street signs, street numbers, and other permanent texts.
But the other day I was walking in my own neighborhood and saw these temporary texts spray painted on the street. One looks like it has something to do with a telecomm company; another seems to delineate property lines and/or water meters; the third, I'm not sure. They're not meant for the general public; they help some service workers navigate the streets to do their work. I'm constantly intrigued by little traces like these, little traces that indicate other overlapping activities of which we know little.
I've given some thought to these types of markings before in regard to augmented reality. The AR computer system can recognize certain symbols (markers) and then provide the overlay of the virtual on the real world. Workers of this type could easily use a tablet pc to view the markings and then be provided additional information about the job itself--invisible to the rest of us.
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