dinsdag 29 mei 2012

Money well wasted is not wasting it [psychogeographer-meets-GPS]


Did you know that Jo and Schuyler worked on Mapping Hacks in my house (maybe 10 minutes in total but still...)? Nearly ten years after the formation of the locative media lab network that plotted the potential of universal GPS-capability in combination with handheld internet-capable devices I have purchased a GPS-device. Off course now that everything such a device does has become available as an extra to everyone with a smartphone the phone option probably gives you better value but I don't have a mobile and I don't want a mobile. Because what would be next? A driver's licence? A Metallica T-shirt? Voting for Wilders? Evil leads to more evil.

I have never felt the need to own a GPS and I am not entirely sure why I bought one now.  I thought that maybe geocaching would be a nice activity to take up but that I have already removed from my to-do list. After looking at caches in the area I was displeased to discover that it has written boyscout humor all over it: with puzzles (yuck) and shit like that. My main reason for wanting a GPS is that, in the light of ongoing Postman Pat Psychogeographix, I want to track my postal rounds to better analyse the experience of place by getting a firmer grip on the objective properties of the job. In the end I will probably spend my time watching at the damn screen at the cost of taking notice of the space around me. Maybe in the back of my mind I bought it on the off-chance that I will ever go foraging with my yet to make yanomami or eskimo friends. The device itself I like for its outdoorsy look, it's built to last, but, you know, fuck consumer fetishism , it's just something you can buy. Most likely the thing will end up where my Ipaq ended up: unused in a box somewhere. 

Al least I have supported the company that pays the salary of Ryder Hesjedal.

Trace of my Garden Village postal rounds

1 opmerking:

  1. Hi Wilfried, the GPS is a fascinating toy. I have done some playing around with it here:
    http://uair01.blogspot.com/2012/04/place-and-memory.html
    I used an online map visualization service.

    One of our psychogephysics colleagues uses Qgis for trace visualization:
    http://planbperformance.net/dan/blog/?p=741

    Once I'm finished with sonification of geometric shapes I'm planning to try sonification of GPS traces.

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