‘Getting it up’ with mobile virtual graffiti

Since the first appearance of modern man one trait of human behaviour appears to be an inherent desire to leave our mark on a particular object or space and controversial ‘SprayCan’ graffiti that appeared in the 1970s is but a modern extension of this phenomenon. The Mobspray project started out looking at the possibilities for allowing environmentally friendly location based virtual graffiti tagging using mobile phones equipped with a RFID reader/writer. However, our experiences produce aspects akin to the ‘tagging’ behaviour of ‘real’ writing crews and indeed behaviour often associated with gaming. This demonstration will show how both how simple and easy to use mobile phones equipped with RFID technology are, and how tangible objects can be used to create interesting mixed reality experiences for the modern urban landscape.