Virtual Journeys:
a new form of electronic
synchronisation
The virtual journey is a form of electronic synchronisation developed
over a series of workshops by researchers from a range of British and European
universities. The Odyssey group
workshops involve physical and virtual participants. An individual may be
present at a particular event via either or both modes. The Virtual
Journey is a means of accessing aspects of the Odyssey Group workshops
without co-presence. The use of web technology to capture key aspects of an
environment or a pathway through an environment allows virtual participation in
workshops and discussion.
Such a journey consists of a web page (or small set of pages) containing
images gathered during the journey and links to relevant web-sites discovered
either on route or subsequently.
Journeys may be constructed in real time, during the workshop, to
communicate immediate experience across the virtual group. They may be
re-constructed subsequently, as a means of archiving social practice and
experience. They may be constructed as a reflection on experience triggered by
events and discussions during the meeting.
The third Odyssey meeting was held in conjunction with the
APROS 2000 meeting in
Sydney, Australia. A journey in the form of a transport oriented web site was
established during the
meeting as a means of framing Australian experience through connection and
comparison with a relevant earlier exploration in an African context
The following Virtual Journeys, authored or co-authored by Stephen
Little, illustrate a collective learning process which has uncovered a range of
possibilities:
- New York
Wineries
This journey was one of the prototypes conducted at the
first Odyssey workshop held in August 1999.
- On the
Road
This virtual journey to Rochester New York, "Image Capital
of the World" represents the perceptions of four members of the group gained
over two journeys between Ithaca, NY and Rochester, the city in which George
Eastman transformed photography from a craft to an industry.
- From
fatal shore to red centre: repositioning Aboriginal Australia
This
journey, constructed during the Odyssey 2000 workshop, draws on the experiences
of the decade spent by the author in Australia. It allows the reader to link
into the aboriginal and migrant sources of diverse views of the Australian
experience.
- Recovering
identity: a Scots 'pilgrimage'
This journey is the collective
product of the physical journey of two Scottish-based Professors of Transport
and the shadow journey through Scottish cyberspace of two virtual companions at
the workshop. These parallel journeys and the real-time construction of this
web page took place during the second week of the workshop.
- Township Transport
This journey was constructed by
members of the group who visited South Africa jointly and separately in the
space of a year. It is intended to develop through further contributions from
fellow travellers to become a resource or tool kit which will further
participative planning and organisation of transport in South African
townships.
- Townsville Transport
This journey was developed as a
companion to Township Transport. It was used, as an adjunct to the
APROS 2000 meeting in
December, to explore issues of transportation, access and exclusion in
Australia that mirror or contrast with those prevailing in South Africa and
elsewhere.
- Tatra Transport
This site completes the trio of
transport related sites. It is a repository of practice - good and bad - from
around the globe.
- Archiving Practice
This site was established in
conjuction with the 10th APROS
Colloquium held in Oaxaca, Mexico in December 2003.
Return to information about
Stephen Little
This page is maintained by
Stephen Little
Centre
for Innovation, Knowledge and Enterprise
Open University Business
School
Milton Keynes, U.K.
s.e.little@open.ac.uk
