Paul Hiam

FireJar lets users turn their mobile recordings into digital time capsules that later visitors to that place can view and add to.<br />

Description

The application is accessed through the browser on a mobile phone and uses the Web Geolocation API to stream the device's GPS position to the server. Media in the database is delivered to the device by a web-socket connection and an audio notification happens when new content is discovered.

Placing a video, audio recording, image or written message on Firejar allows that content to be found by later visitors to the location. This interaction seeks to create a collaborative storytelling platform about the culture and identity of places, exposing the experiences that occur within them and informing the way they are understood by visitors at any given moment.

Permitting users to organize posted content into Projects, which function like audio-tours, enabled the creation of Crossing, a site-based poetry experience on the Brooklyn Bridge. Visitors could find the firejar webpage url posted on stickers along the walkway. When they visited the page, they received audio of the verses to Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman. They could leave a memory of the experience for later visitors in the form of a note, photo or video, as a way to connect to people crossing in the future, which is the theme of the poem.

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