Entry #28
Neither Ordinary nor Extraordinary
Daigo Futamata
An augmented reality app that lets people keep various species of virtual animals within Sony Park. The animals need to be continuously fed and taken care of at the site, which necessitates users to form communities whose members take turns visiting the Park. Even after the planned transformation of Sony Park into the new Sony Building in 2022, the system can continue to operate with minimal modifications.
Online voter comments:
Blue boxes show positive comments, Red boxes show negative comments.
The length of the striped bar represents the number of people who shared the opinion.
FOR (A): I like how tech is used to turn into reality the implausible-sounding idea of raising wild animals in Ginza
FOR (B): Attaching a virtual, community-owned resource to a place sounds like a novel way to interact with the city
AGAINST (A): Raising virtual animals sounds fun, but its effect on the city at large seems limited
AGAINST (B): Why would people want to care for the virtual animals? I don't understand the incentive
AGAINST (C): We should try to reduce, not deepen, people's addiction to mobile devices
AGAINST (D): Only people who own supported digital devices can interact with the animals; seems rather exclusive
AGAINST (E): Caring for shared animals can indeed create a sense of community, but isn't that limited to real animals?
- Metadata:
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• The degree to which advanced technologies (including IT) are used
2 (Low-tech) 1 - 2 - 3 (High-tech) -
• Site-specificness: The degree to which the idea targets a specific locale
2 (Site-agnostic/universal) 1 - 2 - 3 (Site-specific) -
• Degree of commercial potential
1 (Strictly for public good) 1 - 2 - 3 (May profit some parties involved) -
• Time scale of citizen-led changes to cities enabled by the idea
3 (Short-term change) 1 - 2 - 3 (Long-term change) -
• Geographic scale of citizen-led changes to cities enabled by the idea
1 (Small-scale change) 1 - 2 - 3 (Large-scale change) -
• Hurdles toward participation, from a citizen’s perspective
1 (Anyone can participate) 1 - 2 - 3 (Requires expertise, time, money, etc.)