Abstract
The artist: the first person to set out a boundary stone, or to make a mark
—Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari
The author discusses the field of locative arts, focusing on works and interests from 2003 to 2004. An overview is presented of the artistic project types found within this field, and the author considers in depth a number of issues such as how projects are shaped by their reliance on positioning technologies and the importance of the social within this area of practice.
Intro
When the oceans became navigable following the deployment of the chronometer as an onboard location device, our view of the earth and our relationship to it changed, as did the forms of representation used to express or explore that relationship. The first photographs from the Apollo space missions changed once more the view of the earth and yielded one of the most iconic and ubiquitous images ever produced. Today it is digital and satellite mapping technologies that have caught the attention of a new generation of artists and do-it-yourself (DIY) technologists, who are exploring the use of portable, networked, location-aware computing devices for user-led mapping, social networking and artistic interventions in which the fabric of the urban environment and the contours of the earth become a “canvas”.
- Drew Hemment (UK) is Director of Future Everything, a nonprofit company responsible for Futuresonic International Festival; AHRC Research Fellow in Creative Technologies, University of Salford; and Project Investigator in the Pervasive and Locative Arts Network (PLAN). He is currently working on the interdisciplinary arts-based research project Loca: Location Oriented Critical Arts. Projects include Loca (2003-present), Futuresonic (1995-present), Low Grade (2005), Mobile Connections (2004), FutureDJ (2004), Turntable Re: mix (2004), Migrations (2002-2003), Blacktronica (2002), Sensurround (2001-2002), BrokenChannel (2001) and SenseSonic (2000). Hemment was involved in early U.K. electronic dance culture as a DJ and event organize): He completed an MA at the University of Warwick and a Ph.D. at the University of Lancaster.
Full text (PDF) p. 348-355