Place. Identity. Connection
L.I.V. – an intelligent media system that creates personal connections between people and places
A study project by Paula Berns
6th semester, 2025
Supervised by Romina Marsico, Max Studanski and Prof. Tsune Tanaka
Background to the project
As a result of globalisation and the accelerating pace of life, places are becoming increasingly less significant. Space is becoming something ‘abstract’ (Heidegger, 1952). It is losing its significance and is now perceived merely as a measurable and controllable location. As a result, people are losing their connection to places. In such a world, there is a growing need for orientation and a sense of belonging.
Local identity creates precisely that. It arises from emotional, social and cultural connections to a place. These connections are forged through shared experiences, traditions, stories and everyday interactions. This identity can only emerge through communication, which is why interaction with others is crucial.
That is why my aim is to promote local identity, particularly in urban areas, where anonymity is often a problem and people interact less with one another. I want to facilitate interaction through places. To connect people and places. Only when these places facilitate interaction – indeed, encourage it – can they help to shape identity and thus offer people a sense of direction and stability.
The system
L.I.V is an intelligent media system designed for passers-by in public spaces who wish to spontaneously engage in a location-based, interactive experience aimed at fostering local identity.
L.I.V connects people with one another based on their answers to a location-based, personal question, using light projections. The interactions that take place there are permanently immortalised on an open space.
The telephone box
The user’s first point of contact with my system is a telephone box.
Above the phone box, on a cube, users see a question, such as ‘What is your first memory of this place?’. To answer the question, people go into the phone box and speak their answer into the receiver.
On the one hand, the phone box solves the problem of data transmission – that is, how the system receives users’ answers – and, on the other hand, using the phone box is intuitive. Most people are familiar with it and know to pick up the receiver and speak into it.
It was also important that it be a private space. Inside the phone box, you are shielded from the outside world; there are few distractions and you are undisturbed. It provides a space where users’ answers remain private. People can decide for themselves with whom they share their answer. This enables users to answer the question honestly.
The Connections
Once the people have answered the question in the phone box and step out of it, the system connects them to one another using light projection.
A circle appears around the person, connecting them to the other people.
The connection is based on the users’ answers. By using AI to categorise and classify the content of the answers, it is possible to determine whether the answers of the other users are similar or contradictory.
The system assigns each person their own colour, using the colour wheel as a guide. Similar answers are positioned close together on the colour wheel, whilst contrasting answers are positioned opposite one another.
Immortality
As soon as people interact with one another, a circle appears around them. During the interaction, the people are not connected to the others. They can focus entirely on the interaction. The interaction that has taken place within the system is immortalised on an open space.
As soon as the people step out of the interaction, the interaction appears on the open space via a light projection. Once the project is over, all the interactions are immortalised on the wall – that is, painted onto it. This way, every time people return to this place, they are reminded of that moment. They find themselves back in that place.
Example of a visualisation of perpetuation:
The dots represent interactions between similar answers, and the circles represent interactions between contrasting ones.