you, me and everywhere we go
an exhibition of our GPS tracks at peacock visual arts, aberdeen
see animation (note - for some reason the java applet complains about an expired certificate - please ignore while we track down the problem, there is absolutely no risk to your computer)
Co-inciding with the conference 'Recoded: Landscapes and Politics of New Media' at the Centre for Modern Thought.
In a type of deliberate self-surveillance, we constantly record our movements (Dan since 2003 and Sophia since 2007) using GPSs, making sure we have enough batteries, downloading the data periodically before it is overwritten and producing maps and visualisations of everywhere we go. These daily repeated journeys become main arteries that define how and where we are living: a thick, reiterated street, due to GPS imprecision, bleeds out of the width of the actual streets that it traces. The thin, one-line marks attest to unique and memorable journeys to new territory in a familiar city.
You, me and everywhere we go is the bringing together of this data in visual form. First shown in 2008 at Peacock Visual Arts in Aberdeen, UK, the installation comprised of two A0 (841 x 1189 mm) archive quality ink-jet prints (giclée prints) of our journeys in Berlin during one year. Although at first sight identical, closer observation reveals the differences between the journeys made by two people that share lives but not every single movement. This is complemented by a computer animation (using Processing) of two GPS data streams represented as lines drawing themselves on a split screen projected on a wall. The two halves of the screen look the same when we are together but follow one individual to, for instance, Tokyo, while the other stays in Berlin. Accompanying the computer animation are two headphones which play our voices, recorded binaurally, reading every SMS text message we sent each other during the course of the year. These text messages testify to the intimate world of a couple reminding each other to buy groceries or sending messages of support and love across time zones. The record shows that we have been thousands of kilometres apart, one walking through the other's night in a completely unfamiliar place, trying to lessen the distance with regular telephone calls or text messages. For the last year we have also tried to take a photo a day (using our phones) for the other person to give them a snapshot from the other person's day.
As this is an ongoing project for us we are constantly thinking about the process of amalgamating out data sets (both of gps traces, text messages, and photos) and how to present this material to others. During 2010, assisted by a residency with the Mixed Reality Lab in Nottingham, we will be investigating how to develop this practice further and exhibit the results.