UBIQr 1 Workshop: Brands and Groups

Tuesday 19 and Wednesday 20 June 2007
Venue: Evolution House, corner of West Port and Lady Lawson Street, Grassmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 2LE, Edinburgh College of Art, map
Images of route from Evolution House to Kenneth Mackenzie

Groups have been known to cluster around brands, or to use brands in the formation of identity. Think of how communities use Prada, Nike, Apple and Wired, or less celebrated locally oriented brands: Neighbourhood Watch, St Mary's, Crombies Butchery, the Leisure Centre. Groups have also been known to position themselves against brands as an exercise in collaborative 'culture jamming.' Commentators have identified Japanese cultures of keitai (cell phones) as components within group and personal branding strategies. Groups gather and dissipate into the variegated brandscapes of urban living.

In this workshop we focus on how groups use brands and branded spaces in their social encounters. What is a brand in this era of hyper-mobility, digital interconnectivity, local and global reconfigurations and sceptical consumerism? The workshop will also provide an opportunity to discuss and showcase innovative technologies that foreground issues of brands, groups and branded meeting places.

This is the first AHRC/EPSRC-funded workshop of the Branded Meeting Places group.

PROVISIONAL WORKSHOP PROGRAMME

TUESDAY 19 June 2007

12:30 Lunch
13:00-13:30 Introduction (Richard Coyne). Review of Branded Meeting Places project.

13:30-15:15 Session A: Brands

Chair: James Stewart
Tony Kent • Flagships brand spaces
Eric Laurier • Halfords
Isabelle Szmigin • Branding, identity and consumers

15:15-16:00 Coffee and demonstrations

16:00-17:45 Session B: Media and Community

Chair: Mark Wright
Sally Jane Norman • Theatres of individuation
Drew Hemment • Freeing urban space, making it strange - locative arts and branded places
Alessandro Aurigi • Policy and Design in the Augmented city

17:45-18:30 Demonstrations and discussions

Dinner

WEDNESDAY 20 June 2007

Venue: Alison House, Nicolson Sq
9:15-12:00 Session C: Groups, Brands and Ubiquitous Technologies

Chair: Alan Dix
Andy Crabtree • Mobile Play in the city space
Katharine S. Willis • Encounters in the Mediated City
Karen Martin and Arianna Bassoli • Inbetweenness

12:00-13:00 Activity
13:00-14:00 Summary and Lunch


All participants are requested to do conduct a personal brand survey with a camera (on a mobile phone is fine). Before you come to the workshop please take pictures of the brands you use: places, insitutions, things, apparel etc. You can email us the pictures or upload them to Flickr send a link, and link to the flickr group Iammybrands. Alternatively send us another link to where they are and we will create an activity out of them. For an example see here.