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Thursday 21 January 2010

Random GPS Adventures

GPS Drawing:

The idea behind GPS Drawing is to track a picture by walking around a landscape. It was a lot harder to do than it first seemed as there are buildings and roads in the way, so making a pattern is hard. The site I picked however was because of the natural star shape I saw in it from above. I really like stars so I thought it would be good to make use of the natural flow of the space itself. Despite what the drawing looks like I actually walked along the paths. I really liked how it turned out however in hindsight I would have liked to have done a much larger picture over a bigger area. My first ideas included a bunny and a Spork. I picked this site however because it’s fairly compact and small yet is still very effective. The natural dimond-ish star shape is, to me at least, very appealing so I enjoyed the project.



GPS Ramble:

Another project I did with GPS was based on the quote “It’s a dangerous business, stepping out your door. If you don’t watch your feet, you never know where they may take you!” It is from lord of the rings (a favourite book of mine) and it got me thinking. In this day and age everyone knows where they are headed. We put signs up everywhere and build roads that take the most direct route to where we want to go. People say that the journey is what's important but we hardly ever just go out to experience a journey however I don’t like the confines of a set route. So I was curious to track were a random wander would lead me. I thought it would be a good idea to use GPS in a new and inventive way and see what happened. In this project aimed to show how we can use our man-made system, which is designed to keep us on course against its nature, in taking a method of knowing where you are and using it to get lost, to actually take GPS and flip its purpose around so it does not help me make a path or journey, simply it observes and records the journey taken free of restrictions, Kind of like GPS drawing but in freestyle. It may have show a structured route to nowhere or possibly an unstructured route to somewhere. So off I went on a LotR Style ramble...



There seems to be no great pattern in where I walked however I am convinced I can see a part towards the bottom that looks a little like a pot. I would like to have spent a little longer and taken more cuts across grass. That’s how you can use a tracking device to get lost! It proves that if you let go you never do know where your feet can take you well, unless you use a GPS device!

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