Locative media communities, social media and cultures of enthusiasm

ABSTRACT Locative media art has been a popular topic to study, yet the focus tends to be on examining the artworks themselves, which have challenged us to think about the complex interrelations of space, place and time in novel ways. In this paper we offer a different view of locative media art by examining the community practices that can emerge through the production of this work. By highlighting how the social media platform, WhatsApp, facilitated communication and arts practice during a recent summer school on the theme of locative media, we demonstrate how cultures of enthusiasm can emerge from the adjacent digital spaces of locative media art. Our reflections highlight the ways that enthusiasm for locative media art and towards other participants was produced through WhatsApp spaces, through both enthusiastic language practices and atmospheres of enthusiasm. Ultimately, we aim to reveal that locative media is not only a technology that is used to shape our relationship to space, place and time, but that it is also a technology which encourages a set of community driven practices. In doing so we contribute to the literature on locative media art by giving attention to the communities of practice that form around it.