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Walking to Work no.2
June 2013
Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster
Walking to Work no.2 is a performative walk from my home to the gallery, of approximately 10 miles. Four people were invited to join me on the walk through the mobile phone app Comob Net.
The live data from the four participants was projected onto a drawn map of the local landscape as they were walking. Through the app, participants could see each other converging on the gallery as they travelled from London, Yorkshire and Lancaster.
The map is only of water in the landscape in order to offer a recognisable geographical anchor for the projection, and yet to be obviously a partial map that does not reveal detail of participants locations, or anticipate roads, railways and footpaths. The projected data can therefore be viewed in terms of how the locations of participants relate to each other in terms of proximity, trajectory, and speed rather than by precisely where each individual is located. The map is drawn in silver ink, as the viewer moves in relation to the drawing its visual appearance changes, reflecting more or less light depending on the position of the viewer. A map that changes in relation to the viewer suggests that instead of the 'God's eye view' usually associated with aerial perspectives, that the map is always a fragment showing a specific political or social perspective on landscape, and viewed in different ways depending on the map readers situation.
The live mapping offers participants with a shared experience of 'comobility', of being mobile with othes at a distance. As smart phones allow GPS to be a networked technology this form of mobile communication becomes possible, and through 'Walking to Work' participants reflect on what it means to them to be connected at a distance through their movements, location, speed, trajectory and mode of travel which can all be read in the subtle movements of the blue dot on the screen.
Viewers in the gallery and invited to reflect on the movement as it is continually replayed after the event, throughout the duration of the exhibition, and to speculate on the relationships between people in motion, and both the positive and more creepy connotations of live networked GPS tracking.
