drving-as-art-practice

Driving seems to be a practice with which art has only minimally engaged. And yet our perception of location and mobility over the last fifty years has, to some extent, been mediated through vehicles. More recently, the growing proliferation of in-car navigation devices indicates that the driving culture of navigation and orientation is changing; being further automated and digitally mediated.

In comparison to the active experience of walking (ambulant), the in-car experience of location is passive and remote and is marked by a lack of sensorial input. There generally exists one goal in driving activity; that of reaching the destination, which overrides any opportunity for serendipitous discovery. It is also distinguished by the experience of speed; a factor that by its nature makes diverse use of human navigational strategies and reconfigures concepts of location.
Kevin Lynch et al. (Appleyard, D, Lynch, K , Myer, JR (1964): The View From the Road, Cambridge, MA:MIT Press) did some work back in the 60's trying to understand the perception of place as effected by the driving experience. This highlighted the heightened sense of sequencing in the environment, and the time-place spatialisation of landmarks along a route. One of the observations in his publication was that 'the highway is - or at least might be- a work of art.' I understand that this viewpoint is very much based in urban design, but as this growing area of location based media, it seems entirely relevant to engage with the driving experience and vehicles in terms of their impact on concepts of location and mobility.