The Social Network of Things (and Places)

Ever heard the old saying, "If these walls could talk?"  Well, now they can.  The folks at several universities in the U.K. have banded together to create Tales of Things, a project that aims to give meaning to objects through the stories associated with them.  Participants attach a small tag with a QR code to a place or thing and then upload its story to talesofthings.com.  Anyone with a smartphone can then scan the tag and learn the history of the object.  Judging from the site's map, The World of Things, the project is still in its infancy, with most of the posts coming from the U.K.

 The creators of digitalurban.org have spearheaded the tagging of buildings by pushing for an architecture group within Tales of Things.  Smartphone users can now read the stories embedded in the cultural landscape by just scanning a building's QR code.  Buildings can even tweet when people read their stories.  What an ingenious way to record the historical and emotional geographies of the built environment!  The idea is similar in concept to the emotional cartography of Christian Nold, as well as the psychogeographic postcards created by Electric Angel Design Studio.

Read more at the following links on digitalurban.org.

Wired Big Ideas for 2011: Chatitecture - Talking Buildings

Spark of Genius Series: Tales of Things QR Codes and Life Logging



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