In-depth

The ritual and the rhythm: interacting with augmented reality, visual poetry and storytelling across the streets of scattered LAquila.
Authors
Giuliana Guazzaroni
giuliana.guazzaroni@gmail.com

Universit Politecnica delle Marche, Italy

Tags
Augmented reality; Emotional mapping; Mobile learning; Smart city; Ubiquitous learning; Absolute performative.

Mobile smart devices and augmented reality applications may exemplify access points to navigate a city, to detect different layers of reality, to offer different narratives of the urban geography and to explore the real environment. It may represent an emotional journey where familiar places are represented through unusual perspectives. A sliding between reality and virtuality, an invite to participate and discover public spaces. Street Poetry in augmented reality exhibitions are urban paths to engage people (e.g. students, citizens, tourists etc.) with art and smart technologies while performing something. In this article, the format Emotional Mapping of Museum Augmented Places (EMMAP) is discussed using the evaluation of the trial that was implemented in LAquila (Italy). EMMAP experiences are divided into seven phases, based on the 7E learning cycle (1. Elicit; 2. Engage; 3. Explore; 4. Explain; 5. Elaborate; 6. Extend; 7. Evaluate) (Eisenkraft, 2003; Guazzaroni & Leo, 2011; Guazzaroni 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2012b; Guazzaroni, 2013a). Each time a group performs Street Poetry a sort of ritual and rhythm is activated across the streets. When participants are outside, when they enjoy interactive performance, they naturally react to specific stimuli and to other peoples movements. They may also activate a sort of empathetic engagement by starting a correspondent simulation to digital artefacts. The author of this article developed EMMAP, during her PhD program in e-Learning at the Faculty of Engineering, Polytechnic University of Le Marche, Ancona, Italy. The format EMMAP is devoted to promote mobile and ubiquitous learning environments in museums or in other places of historic-cultural interest. (Guazzaroni, 2010/2011; Guazzaroni, 2013c).

1. Introduction
EMMAP is an emotional experience that was trialled in two museums and urban streets. The format has been developed to engage people in their region as well as to attract young people to visit places using mobile devices. The main objective of the experiments was to encourage an active learning environment through the use of mobile and ubiquitous technologies, which dynamically involved participants and to make them explore museums, heritage and contemporary art (Guazzaroni & Leo, 2011). EMMAP technological and pedagogical architecture may be implemented in different settings. It was implemented in two museums, around the walls of Macerata, in Borgo Ficana (mud houses and UNESCO Cultural Heritage) and in LAquila (Italy). The experiences in the two museums were analysed in previous papers mainly from a didactic point of view (Guazzaroni, 2013a; Guazzaroni, 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2012b; Guazzaroni, 2012c). This article is devoted to those exhibitions implemented in the streets, as they are significant for their interactive and performative nature.

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During the trials of EMMAP different augmented reality exhibitions of digital pictures and poetry were prepared. The exhibits are permanent and visible all around Maceratas urban walls, in Borgo Ficana, and all around the red zone of LAquila. The red zone is the unwalkable area of LAquila, as in 2009 an earthquake almost completely destroyed its historical centre. Now scarcely 10% of it is walkable by citizens or visitors. In 2011, sixty digital paintings were disposed all around the wall of Macerata. The visual artists were asked to paint selected poems relating to the Street Poetry awards from 2006 to 2010. In 2011 there was a vital production of these paintings, the members of Licenze Poetiche (a non-profit association that has organized the traditional prize since 2006) could not find a proper gallery to show their canvases. Then came the idea to share them using geolocalization and augmented reality facilities (Guazzaroni, 2013c). Now the Street Poetry digital paintings are visible using an augmented reality application called Layar (http://www.layar.com). Layar is a browser to detect and scan different layers of reality, using smartphones or tablets (Android, iOS etc.). It is used to scan vision based augmented reality or to detect geolocated synthetic objects. The browser shows users what is around by displaying real time digital artworks. In September 2012, the experience in Macerata was enlarged with new digital paintings displayed in Villa Ficana. In June 2012, a similar experience called Street Poetry in augmented reality was brought to LAquila. A group of artists from LAquila said that after the earthquake their town centre needed life, vital projects, art and poetry. Consequently a Call for artists was opened to gather digital artworks to be used to build an augmented reality exhibit all around the red zone, and in other relevant areas. LAquila Municipality, Adam Accademia Delle Arti Macerata, Licenze Poetiche, LAquila eMotion and Noi LAquila patronized the exhibit. The opening to public was a success and the invisible emotional paths produced a vibrant reaction. On September 22nd 2012, eTwinning ambassadors (http://www. etwinning.net), about one hundred educators, participated in a walking workshop in LAquila to experience Street Poetry and interact with augmented reality. They were there to discover new stimuli to improve their teaching methodology. Street exhibits have been evaluated through questionnaires, interviews and direct observation to reveal: social benefits, positive interaction, creative thinking, emotional benefits and territorial feedback. This article is devoted to develop the themes related to augmented reality and mobile smart devices during the walking workshop in LAquila. Using the evaluation and direct observation of participants, the following five points are developed: 1. Positive interaction and techno-didactic benefits: Performance art is created for the other. The street performance is also an interactive experience. Most of the participants said that the use of mobile technologies reinforced social participation and fostered group work. 2. Creative thinking benefits: Performative absolute and creative mind development. Most of the participants said they improved their creative thinking during the performance. 3. Emotional benefits: Most of the participants felt that the routes fostered the creation of an emotional bond with the location. 4. Social benefits: Participants felt that working in groups had improved their attitude to listening to peers; moreover, most of them said that everybody in the group contributed to the construction of group knowledge; they also improved their awareness and respect for their peers. 5. Territorial feedback: Performance promoted a dialogue with past, present and future visitors, and it improved the interest in digital artefacts, memories and local heritage. In general, augmented reality performances, according to most of the participants, seem to augment the bond of different visitors (students, citizens, tourists etc.) with the territory and its heritage. Moreover, EMMAP experiences are divided into seven phases, based on the 7E learning cycle (1. Elicit; 2. Engage; 3. Explore; 4. Explain; 5. Elaborate; 6. Extend; 7. Evaluate) (Eisenkraft, 2003; Guazzaroni & Leo, 2011; Guazzaroni 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2012b; Guazzaroni, 2013a, Guazzaroni, 2013c). Consequently, each time a group performs Street Poetry a sort of ritual and rhythm is activated across the streets.

Background
Handheld mobile devices offer the possibility to connect to the mobile Internet outside traditional settings (e.g. school, office, home), people may fluidly connect while walking in the streets, while jogging or doing other open-air daily activities. The practices of the mobile Internet may facilitate the development

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and the acceptance of informal learning environments through rich experiences. Informal learning allows citizens and students to learn form everyday experience, within the persons environment (e.g. family, friends, and colleagues)This concept is related to a sort of contemporary oikos (in ancient Greek: ), which is the ancient Greek equivalent of household, house, or family. An oikos was the basic unit of society in Greek city-states. The term oikos may describe social groups. The contemporary oikos, however, includes people that share a sort of social interaction, be it through conversation or simple relation. Consequently the concept of oikos is often related to a specific location, even a virtual location can be included in this concept (e.g. daily interaction in the same virtual groups). Learning does not happen in traditional spaces and it is not centered on the teacher. In fact, todays learners can create and share information and aggregate themselves in informal social networks (Siemens, 2009; Leone, Guazzaroni, Carletti & Leo, 2010). Consequently, the barriers between learning, gaming, being a student, a citizen, and a tourist are not defined. Walking in the streets, or visiting heritage sites, using a smartphone or a tablet may offer unique cultural experiences. People may take advantage of a specific location, augmented with synthetic information, as the number of handheld devices has rapidly increased. The format EMMAP originates from the assumption that a visit to a place of interest is an experience that may encourage different needs. Moreover, it may enhance soft skills in order to provoke empathy with the peculiarities of the region. Among the streets, within museums, or galleries, at each step a user may redraw the psychogeography derived from the interaction of different visitors and from the geolocated information. The growing number of smartphones and tablets offers an instant interaction, and a complex experience may arise from real situations. It refers to augmented reality facilities, sensors, and increasing possibilities offered by smartphones but still scarcely implemented. In fact, the most common uses of these technologies do not exploit the different possibilities they may propose to users. However, positive experiences of mixed reality, applied to places of art and culture, are emerging every day. Methodological reinventions of reality may promote local cultural experiences, may offer a broad appeal and a proactive relationship with places and events, through augmented reality territorial marketing. A systematic use of augmented reality as a new way to communicate heritage will be essential for the development of a smart city. Within the smart city, networks of citizens will use different layers of reality, which are appropriate for their needs, for multicultural communities or multilingualism. At the same time, the smart city will offer different narratives skilfully constructed to encounter artistic, cultural and linguistic diversity. It will be like reinventing a complex artistic format that lives and changes through emotional interactions of people (Guazzaroni, 2013c). For the sociologist Castells (1983) cities are an essential raw material in the production of human experience. For this reason, interactive art projects are increasingly used as a platform of expression. Neurological research has pointed out the crucial role of emotions in enjoying culture or in interacting with others. According to Damasio, feelings are the result of the brains interpretation of emotions. Emotions are considered physical signals of the body reacting to external stimuli. Moreover, certain feelings are at the basis of human beings survival as emotional regulatory processes preserve life and form cultural achievements (Damasio, 2005; Damasio, 2010). In other words, the term emotion refers to internal changes in body state and consequently changes in the nervous system. Emotions are not conscious and an object in the streets or into a museum may induce them. They may create actual feelings, which supply stimuli for different actions. A prolonged feeling state can constitute a mood (Damasio, 2000). Learning or interacting in an informal setting augments the different range of emotions various participants can experience as they are immersed in a unique context full of inputs. In a half synthetic or augmented outdoor environment, the number of provocations for users is high. Neural responses are consequently complex, as described by Damasios theory. These responses may lead to specific individual actions, learning and decision-making. Mirror Neurons is a recent neurological discovery to see how the human brain interacts with objects, artworks and heritage. Mirror neuron systems are specialized in executing and understanding the actions of other people, their intentions, as well as the social meaning of their behaviour or emotions. According to Rizzolatti, humankinds survival depends on understanding the actions, the intentions and emotions of others (Rizzolatti & Fabbri-Destro, 2008). Mirror neurons react both when an individual starts a particular action, as well as when the individual notices another person performing a

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similar action. Humans are social beings. They observe others and try to understand what they are doing and why. An action is predictable when it activates, in the observers brain, an analogous representation. Even if the observer does not execute that action, the action is evoked and allows him/her to understand the meaning of what he saw (Rizzolatti & Craighero, 2005). Mirron neurons reveal how people learn and why groups of people respond to certain dance, rhythm and pieces of art (Rizzolatti & Fabbri-Destro, 2008). When participants are in the streets, when they enjoy interactive performance, they naturally react to specific stimuli and to other peoples movements. They may also activate a sort of empathetic engagement by starting a corresponding simulation to digital artefacts (Guazzaroni, 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2013c). During the performances of Street poetry in augmented reality each participant is called to co-construct an emotional map (or bio map). This is a methodology for visualizing peoples reaction to the external world (Nold, 2009) and a tool to get people involved in a ubiquitous or augmented reality environment (Guazzaroni, 2012a). Subjective live mapping does not indicate morphological features of a specific location, but the way people emotionally and digitally interact with it. During performances, emotional content relating to the region are collected, such as anecdotes, legends, stories, poetry, messages to be read in the future. All these elements are assembled to create digital archives of stories and poetry. Performing bystanders, using their personal mobile device, detect synthetic artworks and leave their contribution for future performers. Another aim of the format is to cultivate a sentimental dimension (Galimberti, 2009), an important aspect for a proper development of other forms of intelligences. Moreover, the creating mind, a strategic attitude for present and future leaders, may be cultivated (Gardner, 2006). For EMMAP performances each real experience (e.g. the walking workshop in LAquila) has been divided into seven phases based on 7E learning cycle (Eisenkraft, 2003; Guazzaroni & Leo, 2011; Guazzaroni 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2012b; Guazzaroni, 2013a; Guazzaroni, 2013c): 1. Elicit: The facilitator/designer/artist prepares useful technologies (e.g. software, applications for different types of smartphones, points of interest etc.) and appropriate materials (e.g. videos, texts, pictures, tests etc.); 2. Engage: The facilitator/designer/artist explains the experience they are going to have. Participants may divide into several groups. Groups are involved in different routes aimed at appealing to the participants emotional dimension; 3. Explore: Visitors start detecting artworks or listening to broadcasts in augmented reality, while exploring the location equipped with an emotional map; 4. Explain: Groups start an active interaction with real objects and points of interest. Groups create contents for future visitors and discuss collected data to create their emotional map of the place; 5. Elaborate: Each group develops the final version of their emotional map and of their stories to be left in the location; 6. Extend: Participants collect additional content; 7. Evaluate: The facilitator/designer/artist brings together useful information to evaluate the performance. In an open-air setting, performing bystanders are actively engaged in activating emotions and feelings through action and artefacts. In such a place, it is important to consider the decisive role mirror neuron plays in peoples brains; visitors may experience action by observing objects (e.g. a digital picture suggesting a movement of the body) (Guazzaroni, 2013a; Guazzaroni 2012a). Historical, cultural and contextual aspects do not prevent the consideration of the importance of neural processes that result from the empathetic understanding of visual artworks (Freedberg & Gallese, 2007). At the same time, emotions are rather relevant to activate complex processes in humans brains. Those important processes are at the basis of the engagement of participants in the territory (see oikos). Virno (2004) said that each one of us is, and has always been, a virtuoso, a performing artist, at times mediocre or awkward, but, in any event, a virtuoso. In fact, the fundamental model of virtuosity, the experience which is the base of the concept, is the activity of the speaker. This is not the activity of a knowledgeable and erudite locutor, but of any locator. [] Every utterance is a virtuosic performance. And this is so, also because, obviously, utterance is connected (directly or indirectly) to the presence of others. According to Virno (2003), a speaking person becomes a phenomenon. For instance, there are some situations where humans communicate only what they say (e.g. phatic expressions, echolalia or religious words), in general each time the ritual characteristics of our language arise. These examples may be called performative absolute. The performative

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absolute appears during difficult situations. It is a sign of danger. For instance, an unpredictable output, or something not expected (e.g. an interrupted mobile phone call). In other words, it is a sort of cultural apocalypse, and during these events humans invent strategies or react using monologues to establish more predictable outputs during communication. The performative absolute is the common condition that generally transpires when walking across scattered streets in LAquila. Words could not be uttered to express the experience of visiting a territory where every thing is destroyed (e.g. human bonds, housing, instruction). The cultural apocalypse is evident, and for this reason artists welcomed the Street Poetry experience in those places. Creating an augmented reality experience for visiting people or citizens was creating an experience of art and poetry for others to be enjoyed. Interactions could change the emotional routes and enrich them with new stories, artworks or poetry. It is art for the other, but also a collective ritual when performed by participants. A pure performance of people raising their arms and hands to detect visual synthetic pieces of art. A collective urban ritual, with its own rhythm. The rhythm of poetry and storytelling that may be repeated, and repeated again, each time visitors decide to walk those paths, each time people participate and raise their arms holding smartphones or tablets. It is an act of pure performance. has the chance to interact with synthetic objects through text comments (Guazzaroni 2012a). The first exhibition of Street Poetry in augmented reality was opened on August 30th 2011 in Macerata. This first section included sixty digital paintings that converted selected poetries into images. After the opening, the exhibit was cited by the American science fiction author Bruce Sterling in his blog Beyond the beyond (http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond). Sterling wrote about it as a pleasant thing to experience. Other articles appeared in media, and the Street Poetry exhibit began to attract the interest of more and more visitors. As augmented reality is not yet a usual mobile practice, different people encountered difficulties to discover the virtual paintings. Therefore, augmented promenades were planned to facilitate the visit. The Macerata Ospitale Art Festival augmented reality exhibition is permanent. Moreover, for Macerata Ospitale Art Festival 2012, another five digital works were placed in the charming Borgo Ficana, to augment the UNESCO Cultural Heritage mud houses. These first experimentations about the use of augmented reality facilities were used to implement the experience in LAquila, in June 2012, and to prepare the eTwinning ambassadors walking workshop (Guazzaroni, 2013c). On April 5th 2009, at 3.32am, an earthquake shattered LAquila and killed over 308 people. Nowadays, most of LAquila city centre is still closed to townsfolk. The walkable area of LAquila is a ghost town, where nobody lives and where only a few shops and cafes reopened after the disaster. For example, near the shattered historical centre, a student dormitory building, where eight people died, remains a gutted shell surrounded by a metal fence adorned with photographs of the dead and flowers (Kimmelman, 2012). However, citizens dream of rebuilding and regenerating their town. Consequently they organize numerous cultural activities to express that their city is still alive, and to embrace the idea of LAquila renaissance. Various artists participated in the augmented reality project with their digital artworks, to be displayed in the shattered red zone. The first promenade in LAquila, occurred on June 30th, 2012 and was a success. A group of about forty people gathered in the Google Info Box, in Piazza Duomo, with their handheld devices to see pieces of art. Local TV interviewed participants, and other articles appeared in traditional media and blogs. Bruce Sterling mentioned the new augmented reality exhibit in his blog, helping to promote it.

Performative interaction in public spaces using augmented reality and wearable technologies
The augmented reality exhibition, disposed in LAquila, suggests an experience of mixed reality through the layering of real and virtual elements. Smart mobile devices are wearable technologies and access points to navigate the city, to observe the spaces between the different layers of reality, to redraw the urban geography, from a biological point of view, and to explore the urban intricate rhizome. The exhibit offers an emotional journey to observe familiar places from altered perspectives. They hint at a continuous sliding between the real world and the virtual one, an invite to the rediscovery of public spaces. Without a handheld device, without an augmented reality browser the exhibit is invisible. Only when a visitor is equipped with the necessary technology he/she may check out from the real reality to check in the augmented reality. At this point, if the smartphone is properly set, digital paintings and poetry will be seen to float around and settle among public spaces. If a person spends his/her time playing with the augmented reality, he/she

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The virtual gallery Street poetry in augmented reality is based on the idea that augmented reality can be used in significant places. Augmented Reality is an augmentation of human perception to go beyond the five senses. This type of experience makes people visualize what is invisible to the naked eye. On September 22nd 2012, a walking workshop was organized to discover Street Poetry in Augmented Reality in LAquila. The workshop was organized by eTwinning Italy. The participants were about one hundred educators. They were ambassadors of technology-enhanced learning in their own school or educational managers. Most of them had never visited the city and they did not know what to expect from a ghost historical town. Nevertheless they were aware, they were going to live a strong experience. Their visit was evaluated using ex post questionnaires, interviews and direct observation. The workshop was inserted in their annual meeting conference (http://etwinning.indire.it/articolo.php?id_cnt=2646), and it took place during their last day in LAquila. At the beginning of the workshop, as they reached the city center by buses, they began detecting digital paintings in the area of Fontana Luminosa. From there they strolled to Piazza Duomo and gathered in the Info Box where they could have information about memories left in a Google map by citizens or visitors (Memories: http://www.noilaquila.com; Augmented reality paintings: http://www.mobypicture.com/user/poesiadistrada/ map). The participants were divided into small groups. They could decide the emotional path to visit, and how to interact with synthetic objects in augmented reality. There were 95 educators participated to the workshop, and 90 answered to the ex post questionnaire; 83% of the ambassadors were women, most of them were aged between 45 and 60 (87%); 6% were aged between 30 and 44 and 7% were over 60; 65% did not find technological difficulties; 31% had some difficulties and 3% many difficulties. The difficulties they encountered were primarily due to downloading the augmented reality browser, to detect augmented reality, to the need of one device for each participant, to obsolete operating systems of some personal devices, to the fact that free WI-FI was available only in Piazza Duomo, (elsewhere they had 3G mobile connection), and to the fact that streets are not a meeting room and there many distractions (Guazzaroni, 2013c). The didactic benefits, disclosed by the evaluation, were the following: 1. Social benefits: almost all the participants felt that working in groups had improved their attitude to listening to their peers (87%); most of them said that everybody in the group had contributed to the construction of knowledge (77%); they improved the awareness and respect for their peers (90%). 2. Creative thinking benefits: almost all the ambassadors thought that they improved their creative thinking during the experience (93%); the interaction with digital artworks stimulated their creative mind (96,7%); they all agreed that the possibility to tell a story, and to leave it in the streets for future visitors, inspired creative thinking (96%). 3. Techno-didactic benefits: All the educators affirmed that the use of technologies reinforced social participation and fostered group work; they said that technology promoted a dialogue with future visitors (100%), and it improved the interest in artworks (93%). 4. Emotional benefits: most of the participants declared that the augmented reality routes fostered the creation of an emotional bond with the location (97%); they thought routes activated an emotional dimension with objects and people related to the past, present and future of LAquila (97%); they assumed that a sentimental dimension was fostered by a storytelling activity (95%) (Guazzaroni, 2013c). The general evaluation of Street Poetry in Augmented Reality in LAquila was very high for 60% of the participants; it was high for 33%; average for 5% and to be improved for 2%. To implement such experiences it is recommended to follow the 7E learning cycle (Eisenkraft, 2003; Guazzaroni & Leo, 2011; Guazzaroni, 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2012b; Guazzaroni, 2013c), also in very informal learning environments (see Background). Individuals participating in vanguard experiences, enhanced by technologies, need explanation of what they are going to do before starting the real experience in the streets. It is important to notice that the human brain acts differently when outside learning places. Consequently, rich augmented reality emotional paths need scaffolding to avoid misunderstanding (Guazzaroni, 2012a; Guazzaroni, 2013a; Guazzaroni, 2013c). Augmenting a place, adding synthetic or digital objects, means moving from the normal vision of art towards a more complex

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object or surface on which movements, voices and sounds are projected (Calegari, 2000/2006). Creating a multidimensional experience of virtual works in augmented reality transports visitors towards new narratives. The choice of LAquila as the place for the project is not a casual one. It wants to represent a true shake for society; moving to zones that are still shattered by the earthquake, it chooses vibrant communicative scenarios. The denied right to housing characterizes the red zone, as citizens that lived there were obliged to leave their homes. The inhabitants have had temporary or new prefabricated homes, where former links with their oikos, their neighborhood have been broken. To foster this emergence, an artist created a digital painting representing a gate with a superimposed chained breast. This is one of the synthetic objects that can be seen in augmented reality in the red zone (Guazzaroni, 2013b). The augmented reality routes represent the effort to create significant interaction. In fact, performance art is created for the other, to enhance participants active participation and awareness of the needs of a territory and their citizens. During the walking workshop the performative absolute was experienced as people wanted words to express emotions visiting a scattered location overlaid with canvases and poetry. A sort of cultural apocalypse (Virno, 2003) was reached and the actual rhythm of storytelling monologues could be heard. Memories are monologues, words uttered by citizens or visitors impressed by the absence of everything. Few shops and cafes have reopened after the earthquake. The music from cafes is deafening. Loud music tries to fill the emptiness of real life that has moved elsewhere (or perhaps nowhere?). Handheld devices fill the space and they provide memories as monologues. Storytelling activities may enhance a ritual as people using wearable technologies raise their arms to detect vital pieces of synthetic artworks. The act of raising arms is a simple act of pure performance, it is ritually repeated each time a group walks the Street Poetry experience. Participants mirror neurons are activated re-enacting that gesture. This may happen even if they do not actually have a smartphone or a tablet, as declared by some participants to the walking workshop. In fact, also without a smartphone some people raised their hands, holding old mobile phones in the sky. Many participants to the workshop reported a feeling of uneasiness visiting the ghost town and its absence of life synthetically recreated by wearable technologies. In this scenario, the storytelling activity could be seen as an effort to fix memories and to create new emotional bonds. Participants believed that routes activated an emotional dimension with objects and people related to the past, present and future of LAquila. Nevertheless, during the interviews most of the ambassadors were very enthusiastic, and eager to use augmented reality for their future projects. Some of them reported to be confused by the emotional intensity of the experience, and only one said she was too busy concentrating on how to use the new technologies and unfortunately she forgot to observe LAquilas earthquake-scarred streets. As for the lack of personal handheld devices to detect augmented reality, many participants said that sponsors are needed to promote these experiences and to leave some tablets for visitors in LAquilas Info Box (the Info Box was donated by Google after the earthquake, every day teens meet there to use laptops and free Wi-Fi) (Guazzaroni, 2013c).

New gestures become habitual practice: the ritual in hyperreality

According to Griziotti (2013), the bio-hypermedia is the current dimension of the technological mediation. A new generation of mobile devices flanks the traditional media and the generation of desktop computers. As a result, the whole existence is involved in hyperreality. The technologies, connected and wearable, submit humans to a multisensory perception where the real special dimension and the virtual one are mixed together extending and amplifying emotional stimuli (Griziotti, 2013). The bio-hypermedia is a neologism to highlight the fact that using these sophisticated devices is a qualitative leap in the interaction with the mobile Internet: the body, the senses and the self enter in intimate contact with the networks. The biohypermedia devices potentiate previous technologies. They are characterized by miniaturization and portability, and they can be worn. Nowadays, emotions are dominant and the interaction of five senses with the network is central. Handheld tools can augment reality by overlaying information, or they may become the hub of vital biological functions. In addition, anthropomorphic devices, like Google Glass or Apple iWatch, increasingly flank screens. All these smart interfaces can augment human senses and impose extra attention or cognitive overload. The skilled user, after having overcome technological barriers, introduces settings, multimedia and applications in relation to the dynamics of his/ her own life and aspirations. When mobile devices are constantly reshaped, their usage, content and performance evolve and

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transform themselves (Griziotti, 2013). Smart and wearable interfaces require the use of new habits, practices, and gestures. The actions people enact using handheld devices or wearable technologies are repeated every day, each time a multisensory experience is required. Some people are dependent and need to perform these new gestures when they wake up in the morning. All the actions people enact, each time they walk in a path superimposed with augmented reality, are repeated. The reiteration of new habits may represent a daily ritual. In an augmented reality performance the concept of ritual behavior of participants may become a contemporary social procedural. The ritual is the connection between the trials using augmented reality and performance. It is an absolute performative where the cultural apocalypse makes users utter monologues to reconstruct social bonds and real life. In LAquila, storytelling about memories was the preferred monologue to reconstruct the ghost city, its social life, vitality and commerce. The walking workshops Street Poetry in augmented reality may be considered attempts to rebuild the lost oikos after the catastrophe that occurred on April 6th, 2009. French sociologist Maffesoli (2004; 2009) foresaw that as culture and institutions have declined, people desire nostalgia and consider principles of the past for their guidance. This is one of the reasons why the post-modern era is the era of neo-tribalism. In post-modern society there is the necessity of contemporary rituals. Performance with wearable technology may be better considered a present ceremony where participants (e.g. citizens, visitors, students) repeat the same new gesture in order to detect synthetic objects and to scan invisible layers of reality. Maffesoli (2004) says that the fantastic and the cosmic are part of the quotidian experience of human beings, taking ritual behavior as a crucial concept. Repetition in daily life is linked to the acceptance of limits, to tragedy, and to the eternal return of the present is associated with sophisticated melancholy. Timelessness is an aspect of ritual that may be seen as an aspect of resistance. Maffesoli (2004) also associates the concept of the ritual to the cult of appearances and surfaces. The French sociologist is concerned with the basis of social solidarity and with the destiny of contemporary civilization. According to him, the post-modern human being is a replacement of the modern individual. The post-modern one is a deindividualized person; he/ she is perpetually peripheral and represents no deep truths, but an amalgam of roles. The modern individual perceived himself/ herself as separated from other individuals. The post-modern is characterized by the losing of self into a collective subject. This feature is a characteristic of the neo-tribalism era (Tester, 2002). Neo-tribes are rooted in the ritual and performances of daily life. Life in the streets is characterized by deceptively innocent gestures, often considered insignificant. The neo-tribes reflect and practice a sociality that is characterized by impermanence. They simply are what they are in the present, and they behave like nomads (Maffesoli, 2004).

Conclusions
During Street poetry performances participants repeat apparently insignificant gestures, the ritual of using augmented reality to detect emotional paths and to leave stories for future visitors. Seemingly irrelevant movements are not what they seem. These gestures may reconstruct bonds and social links. They may narrate different stories through a different overlay of reality, they may represent a message to the future, or a vital storify of daily life using wearable smart interfaces. Post-modern tribes may easily read the storify of LAquila, may easily repeat its gestures and ritual through the rhythm of poetry and digital canvas permanently left there in augmented reality. Nowadays, social media are no longer seen as an autonomous cyberspace from material reality. They may be seen as a place of collective action, in urban areas and, in particular, during gathering, that transforms an aggregate of individuals in a collective actor. Social media are tools for a choreography of the gathering. A condition of the contemporary experience in which Internet communication is an instrument used to storify peoples daily interactions (Gerbaudo, 2013). During Street poetry performances, the story of the walking workshop was reported using personal Facebook, Twitter or Flickr accounts to witness the fact that the collective ritual was truly experienced. In the future, the experiences that make some use of wearable technologies and creativity will be more and more diffused. The practice of mobile Internet will lead more and more people to connect in the streets and to enact new urban ritual. Moreover, memories and digital storytelling will be increasingly used to build rich experiences for citizens, students or tourists as demonstrated by the challenges posed by the new smart cities, and its inhabitants needs of different narrations. Actually, postmodern citizens or visitors may use different levels of reality

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based on, for instance, different languages or different cultural approaches. As forms of hybridization between flesh and technological objects have taken shape information networks and virtual spaces that redefine the relationships between identity and technology, technology and the body. Smartphones and tablets are becoming more pervasive in everyday life. A new symbiotic relationship is produced by mobile or wearable devices (Mainardi, 2013). New gestures and ritual are enacted in public spaces; here people may storify their life, memories and social behavior using handheld interfaces or wearable technologies. Street poetry in augmented reality exhibits are open gallery and emotional routes implemented in urban streets to perform ritual or to tell stories to future visitors. These emotional routes may become digital archives of memories and synthetic objects to be enjoyed through mobile Internet by different kinds of users. They may stimulate peoples creative mind or their neglected sentimental dimension. Moreover, the absolute performative may be enacted and the consequent monologue may recreate social bonds and interaction, as seen during the evaluation of the walking workshop in LAquila.

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