Unit 1 Project Proposal Essay
Geospatial Drawing: Marking Place, Making Networks
Aims
The aim of my project is to make geospatial drawings, that use mobile, locative and mapping technologies.
Objectives
My objective is to research and experiment with ways of gathering and recording GIS: Geospatial Information Systems to create drawings, networks or social graphs that analyze and present this information visually in real time. I plan to use mobile phone GPS: Global Positioning System technologies to “track” locations for artistic purposes. I am interested in making sense of social patterns emerging from this recorded data and see drawing and mapping as a prototype for collaboration and participation.
How to present this data visually is an interesting challenge. I have been researching various ways that collected mathematical data has been presented visually and I have been looking at information graphics and a variety of mapping solutions. This field is changing fast, as the ability to collect information gets more sophisticated and the options to present this data get more layered and complex. I am looking for a simple and clear solution and intend to make those drawings viewable over the internet or on mobile devices.
Rationale
We live in an increasingly networked society. With the recent developments in wireless technologies we are able to stay connected to each other as we move though the urban environment. Mobile phones and laptop computers have changed how we communicate and connect with each other. With these technologies our ability to know where our friends and family are, has radically changed.
I believe our sense of community has also changed. We can now be both emotionally closer and intimate with one another, with the speed of real-time voice, text and video communications while still remaining physically and geographically distant from each other. This contradiction has complex social implications. For example, I am enrolled and participate in this Master of Digital Arts course in London, England online via the internet from Vancouver, Canada and I experience complex personal relationships with my colleagues in England, Greece and Germany.
In reflecting on this new reality, I am interested in how we create online communities and how we arrive at our sense of place, where we feel we belong. The possibilities, challenges and responsibilities of making art works using digital technologies such as GIS and GPS have presented me with new ways of making drawings that mark place and make networks. I have been researching and considering various ways to map and graph the locations of a self-selected community of friends and colleagues with like-minded interests.
Outcomes
Over the past three months, I have been making drawings that use simple polygons to connect points and create visual forms. These are studies and source materials for my ideas as they develop. I see these drawings as graphs of networks and communities, which also refer visually to the wire frame meshes used to create 3D graphics.
While there are a number of ways to collect this GIS data, there are also many ways that this empirical and quantitative data can be represented visually, it is too early in my project for me to clearly say what the final outcomes of this project will be. However I know they will be drawings, graphs or maps generated through external data. I am interested in the look of drawings that can be generated using mathematical equations like Voronoi diagrams, the geospatial drawings that are made using Google Earth, cluster maps and maps of global airline travel routes.
My current plan is to make maps of geospatial drawings, that use mobile, locative and mapping technologies to show the relative locations of a group of people at a particular time, and trace their movements through diverse landscapes.
Methodologies
I will be using a reflective process of research and progressive problem solving to make, prototype and refine a series of drawings. My plan is to make drawings based on events and actions generated by external mobile, locative mapping data.
I plan to work with a group of friends and colleagues to help assist in tracking and recording planned events and recorded data. I plan to compare the results of these events, drawings and graphs to arrive at a final presentation for this research that makes the process and activity evident and interesting in an art context.
Media
I plan to use open source GIS mapping technologies along with Google Maps and Google Earth to develop my project. My main recording media will be mobile, locative GPS enabled mobile technologies, open source Java, GIS, GeoTools, social graphs and the internet.
The final project drawings will use self-generated data posted on an internet website along with maps and digital inkjet prints.
Risk assessment
My personal and voluntary travel activities are the primary source of the data and imagery. This will be combined with friends and colleagues who may volunteer to participate on various aspects of this project.
Timetable
My time so far has been spent clarifying the nature of this project. I have openly followed leads and explored my interests. I will continue to post regularly to my blog. My goals for the next phase is to seek collaboration partners who may be interested in participating in this project.
I am currently seeking collaborators in two areas: someone with a strong mathematics background, as well as scripting knowledge and Java, to consult with so I can better understand mathematical possibilities and visualization. I also need to be in contact with someone with mobile computing expertise to better understand the GPS and GIS tracking capabilities of mobile, locative mapping technologies.
I will be attending a Making Artistic Inquiry Visible residency at the Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta from May 12- June 26th, 2008. This residency “brings together a group of artists, writers, curators, and other creative and cultural producers to explore the relationships between research and artistic practice.” I hope to possibly collaborate with artists at that residency on this project.
After returning to Vancouver in July and throughout the summer, I plan to continue my research into social graphs and mobile locative mapping technologies and plan to prototype my project. Until the end of Unit 2 in November, I will continue to research, refine and revise my project proposal, with the plan to focus, clarify and complete my final project in spring 2009.
Bibliography
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