Media Spaces

Space

At first glance, Media Spaces resembles a video teleconferencing system. What makes it different is the spatial placements and constraints as well as the different layers of access.

One Media Spaces scenario might have a person sitting at their desk. Across the room, there is a small video screen with a camera above it. If the door is open, the image of a person appears on the video screen and their voice is heard. Concurrently, the person at the desk is being filmed by the camera, and their image is sent to the remote location of the visitor (See Figure 1).

Figure 1. Face-to-face interaction vs. Media Spaces interaction.

This scenario illustrates the novel features of Media Spaces. Firstly, the video screen spatially depicts the general location of a visitor participating in a face-to-face conversation with the person behind the desk. This differs from video phones in that the location of the screen is tied to a specific location in the room, and hence, to a specific function. A video screen in an office above a door has a different function from a large video screen in a shared public space such as a lobby or conference room.

Secondly, there are access constraints built into the system. The user can decide who has access to appear on his or her video screens; they can also designate when they do not want to be disturbed. This is done through a graphical interface in a computer application. Furthermore, simple sensors can be used to designate access. For example, in the image above, a door sensor detects whether the door is open or closed. If the door is open, a remote user can project themselves into the video screen. If it is closed, they cannot. This mimics face-to-face interaction in that if one's door is shut, they are not open to casual conversation.

Media spaces differs from the previous systems in that it brings someone else into your own physical space - one uses their own body to communicate with the person at the other end as opposed to an avatar. An interesting observation about the use of this system was that it's most common use was for casual interaction in common spaces.

The degree of movement of the local user is somewhat limited by the field of view of the camera and the visitors position is static. An interesting precursor to Media Spaces is Hole in Space. This was a near-real-time video and audio portal between Lincoln Center in New York City and The Broadway department store in Century City, LA.

This setup allowed for more freedom of movement due to its size. The size also allowed for multiple people to communicate at the same time. Hole in Space was set up for three days. By the third day it had become a popular gathering point in both cities. People had used it to meet with friends or family at each respective location, they had impromptu sing-alongs, and they simply chatted with people at the other end.