Performing landscape using a locative media deep map app: a Cornish case study

In this chapter we explore whether locative media can develop a deeper connection with a region and its landscape. In the context of our research, locative media is defined as multimedia content delivered through users' mobile phones dependent on their geographical location. The chapter draws on the analysis of and reflection on data collected from users of the Hayle Churks app (2013) created by Lucy Frears using app-making software AppFurnace by Calvium. The development of the app was partly funded by a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant and created as part of inter-disciplinary practice-based research supported by the European Social Fund (ESF) and Falmouth University. Hayle Churks was published on iTunes in December 2013 and won a national Collections Trust award in June 2014. The app can be downloaded over Wi-Fi onto an iPhone and contains over an hour of audio content that plays automatically, triggered by GPS as the participant walks (walking includes wheelchair movement in this document) around the Hayle landscape. The audio content is accompanied by images such as archive photographs, old maps and a painting. In addition, there is an on-screen map that geo-locates the ‘listener-walker-participant’ (Myers, 2010: 70) at all times.