Rapid Authoring of Mediascapes

Ubiquitous computing promises to enable new classes of application. In this paper, we present research intended to accelerate the exploration of the space of possible application values by enabling domain specialists to develop, deploy and evaluate experimental applications, even if they do not have programming skills. We present a framework for the rapid authoring of mediascapes, a commercially important class of media-oriented, context-sensitive, mobile applications. A case study is described in which two artists without prior experience of ubiquitous computing successfully and quickly deployed experimental mediascapes in an urban square. A discussion of their experience suggests future work aimed at closing the gap between application emulation and reality.