‘Litmus’ - Site Specific Artworks

The site specific artworks created in conjunction with Jason Bruges Studio, numbering four in total, are sited at situated at the transition between two environments; the open landscape of Rainham marshes, Essex and the edge of urban conurbation of London.

The artworks act as giant digital litmus papers that sense and respond through interactive sensing equipment to the immediate local environment around them, attempting to reinstate some form of identity to the immediate site. The display is made up of a large exploded LED matrix display approximately seven metres high.

The artworks create a point of mediation between the changing cultural landscapes. They consciously draw on the absence of a local community, and respond by recognising that the community exists instead in the drivers and passengers of vehicles that drive past the sites. The sites are split in two by the A13 road, which acts as a route for drivers leaving or entering London and links both the orbital motorway, the M25 and the commuter districts in the county of Essex.

The artwork reworks the concept of road sign as marker on the isolated and bland road environment, by displaying a five digit display of data that appears initially meaningless. In a territory occupied by transient citizens the artwork encourages the drivers to form a relationship with the artwork by questioning its purpose. Slowly, over the duration of time, an understanding of meaning develops, and the transitory occupants embed the sites with identity through their connection with data.

GPS trace of my movements over the last few months

The most westerly point is London, to the North is Hamburg and to the east is Berlin and Dresden. The southen point is Milan.

Splendid Isolation

This was due to be presented at the Club Transmediale in Berlin on 12th January, but they cancelled the conference due to lack of funding.....

Knowhere:
In the space between the city and the countryside exists a “terrain vague” a term that denotes emptiness, absence, but also promise, the space of the possible, of expectation. It is in these regions that the tension between rural idyll and perceived urban disorder is most strongly experienced.

Conventionally sites such as ring roads, motorways, service stations, industrial parks and out-of-town shopping centres are characterised by a lack of community and recognised as places of social isolation. They inhabit the territory in-between, existing not in their own right, but as parasitical zones, marginalized by both the city and the countryside.
In the1980’s and early 1990’s in England a sub-cultural phenomenon emerged where groups claimed these spaces and created temporary networked communities. The acid house scene invited people to take to the roads, primarily the M25 orbital motorway on the outskirts of London, but also numerous other roads, which led them to huge parties in diverse out-of-town venues.

Technology was the fundamental enabler of the gatherings. Mobile phones, pagers and pirate radio transmissions were all used either alone or in combination to distribute venue details during a generally short period of time. Typically organisers would prepare the secret venue during the day and in the evening, via a mobile phone, would dial a computer that would record their spoken directions to a special meeting point, which was often on the M25 orbital motorway. Secrecy was required, since the early events were illegal, although the sheer numbers of people descending upon the site would often prevent the police from stopping the Rave.

These events were models for how networking in the ‘in-between’ territories could be extremely powerful communication tool; it wasn’t uncommon for thirty or forty thousand people to gather at a party.

The multilayered environment, formed through the overlay of cognitive and GPS mapping strategies is rich, but there exist at the juncture some voids

GPS havoc on French motorway
Correspondents in Nancy

AN ELDERLY motorist driving along a 130km/h expressway in eastern France caused an accident when he followed the advice of his onboard GPS computer - and made a U-turn to drive into the high-speed traffic.
Police said the hapless 78-year-old driver, who was not named, and the occupants of the vehicle he ran into escaped unharmed from the collision late Sunday, but it could have been much worse.

The man told officers his car GPS had told him to "make a U-turn immediately" as he drove along lost on the autoroute near the town of Nancy in search of a hotel.

He did so, not realising the limitations of his satellite navigation device, which guides using verbal directions.

"It's not the first time we've had a GPS incident," one of the officers said, recalling the time a police vehicle found itself face-to-face with a motorist going the wrong way in accordance with his computer's instructions.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11553850%255E15306,00.html