Serendipitor is an alternative navigation app for the iPhone that helps you find something by looking for something else. The app combines directions generated by a routing service (in this case, the Google Maps API) with instructions for action and movement inspired by Fluxus, Vito Acconci, and Yoko Ono, among others. Enter an origin and a destination, and the app maps a route between the two. You can increase or decrease the complexity of this route, depending how much time you have to play with. As you navigate your route, suggestions for possible actions to take at a given location appear within step-by-step directions designed to introduce small slippages and minor displacements within an otherwise optimized and efficient route. You can take photos along the way and, upon reaching your destination, send an email sharing with friends your route and the steps you took.

Serendipitor, by Mark Shepard, was developed at V2_ Institute for the Unstable Media as part of a joint artist residency withEyebeam Art+Technology Center.

http://survival.sentientcity.net/serendipitor

[via networked performance]

Street With A View introduces fiction, both subtle and spectacular, into the doppelganger world of Google Street View.
On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way. Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more…

http://www.streetwithaview.com

Remap Berlin, by Marco Cadioli aka Marco Manray, spreads a thin geographical virus in Google Earth and deals with different levels of reality. The project introduces a series of b&w photographs shot in Twinity, a mirror world that reproduces a realistic 3D replica of Berlin. The photos shot in Twinity, are then geo-localized in Google maps, re-mapped from virtual to real and positioned in the exact point where they have been shot in the mirror world. Once uploaded in the photo sharing community Panoramio, the pictures are mixed up with other ones shot in the same geographical point from real life users. Many of these pictures have been selected by Google and can now be found as “Popular photos in Google Earth”: his became a little geographical virus, parts of our memories of the real world. The photographs are cityscapes, shot by Marco Manray roaming around the still empty streets of Berlin in the beta version.

http://www.marcomanray.com/remap-berlin/

Urban Cursor is a GPS enabled object designed to facilitate social interaction and play in public space. The object, which is shaped as an oversized 3-dimensional computer cursor (pointer), was placed on a square in Figueres, Catalunya during the cultural festival Ingràvid. Here, people could touch it, move it around and sit on it as an alternative to the benches.
Despite being removed from its normal screen based environment, the cursor was still in touch with the digital world. Via an embedded GPS device, the cursor transmitted its geographic coordinates to a website. At the website, the coordinates were mapped in Google Maps thereby documenting the cursor’s movements in the physical world and making it possible for participants to see how they collectively helped move the object around. During the festival participants could also upload photos of the cursor at the website. The photos were automatically placed on the map by matching the photos’ digital time stamp with the GPS coordinates.

http://urbancursor.com/

Donkijote.org, the winning entry of the open competition Digital_LAB 2009 (curated by Roberta Bosco and Stefano Caldana), is an analogue/digital project that will gather data using altogether innovative techniques during four journeys taken by the artist Cristian Bettini a.k.a. P.ankh and the donkey Minuto through different areas of Asturias.The donkey will operate as a living interface equipped with digital hardware such as a GPS, a mobile Internet connection, a computer, a camera and a video camera with which it will create a memory of Asturias, producing and collecting information, re-mapping the territory and geo-categorising knowledge. The rules of the journey are determined by the natural rhythm of the donkey’s pace, giving everything that enters into our perception a measure of human attention.
The people that cross their paths, as well as Internet users, will participate in the project by providing advice and suggestions, contributing to the evolution of the project and the enrichment of the audiovisual and anthropological patrimony of Asturias. The travellers will return to LABoral after each journey where they will carry out activities using the material they have collected. In this way, the exhibition, located in the gallery Platform 1 of LABoral, will evolve and grow throughout the length of the journey and the advancement of its digital representation, connecting virtuality to reality in an indissoluble way.

http://www.donkijote.org
http://www.laboralcentrodearte.org

Der Überflieger – Wearable Interface, by Andreas Zingerle, are wearables for spy pigeons. The project deals with the design and implementation of a wearable technology for carrier pigeons. The experimental setup allows the user to follow the flight path of a pigeon (with GPS and digital photography from its place of release back to the loft. With the project and the use of standard technology, Der Überflieger is a tool for people to use surveillance as a counter-performance to reflect, mirror and disorient organisations that normally have the power to observe public and private life. The documentation shows the design process and the test flights that were carried out in April 2009 in the area of Graz, Austria.
Der Überflieger is currently installed in Linz for Ars Electronica 2009 (Interface Culture Exhibition. 4-8 september 2009).

http://www.derueberflieger.com

http://re.cont3xt.net/index.html

www.fylkingen.se/hz/n8/hight.html
www.hz-journal.org

See art, read stories, and watch a hidden layer of the city reveal itself. Respond with your media and participate in the creative expression and mapping of your neighborhood. By sending a text message to “mobotag”, with your city location, you begin an interactive tour of a neighborhood. Using a unique geocoding feature, “mobotag” tells you what other messages exist in your local area. In the near future “mobotag” will also feature art projects including “flyHere,” a mobile phone audio installation featuring native bird calls; “bugBytes,” collectible graphical bugs originating at major telecoms around NYC; and “lookHere,” a written work in short form by a native NY writer.

“mobotag” is a 2006 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (aka Ether-Ore) for its Turbulence web site. It was made possible with funding from the Jerome Foundation.
http://turbulence.org/Works/mobotag

www.stunned.org
www.stunned.org/bono/googlebono.htm

In the 1960s, situationists Debord and Jorn composed psycho geographic diagrams of Paris, which described navigational systems based on their drift through the city. For this, they used Blondel la Rougery’s Plan de Paris a vol d’oiseau, a birds-eye map of Paris. Inspired by this methodology, Urban Eyes enlists our feathered neighbours to establish a connection between this view of the city as now distributed by Google Earth and our terrestrial experience.

HTTP [House of Technologically Termed Praxis] presents
Urban Eyes by Marcus Kirsch and Jussi Angesleva
Private View: 1st June 2006 7-9pm
Exhibition: 1st June – 9th July 2006
Friday- Sunday: 12noon-5pm
For more information:

www.http.uk.net
www.Furtherfield.org
http://project-urbaneyes.blogspot.com/

Exploring Imaginary Geographies

How do different places become interesting? Can a wet and dirty road running through a barren field be appealing? What are the common denominators between a heavy industrial harbour and a nature reserve? In the project Surreal Scania we examine these questions.

Digital technology, in form of video equipment and GPS-units has been used to look into how aura and attraction are connected to different places. Filmmaker Anders Weberg and cultural analysist Robert Willim started by visiting various points within a specific region. This time the region was Scania, located in southern Sweden. On the different locations video material has been collected, which was then used as the raw material for a number of short films. These films are now available for download. At the moment we provide six different films, but more will be added to the collection in the future.

The films can be seen as comments to process of place marketing and branding. In choosing the places, the aim has been to mix both geographical locations that are seen as tourist attractions and locations off the beaten track. In the digital manipulations, made by Anders Weberg, the visual raw material is transformed to highlight a dreamlike and surreal imaginary geography. All films are based solely on sound and video from the different geographical points.

All the films are accompanied with files containing the exact geographical coordinates for all the different places. By using Google Earth it is possible to view aerial photos of the points represented in the different films. Using a GPS-unit it is also possible to visit the locations where the visual raw material was shot. And as the films are provided in various file formats optimized for most mobile video players, it is possible to enjoy the filmic representations on the very spots where the material was filmed. In this way the imaginary can be compared to the real. But what is real or imaginary? With Surreal Scania we want to explore different visual representation techniques, and we also want to recognise the fact that our imagination has an important role in forming the experiences of these locations.

http://www.surrealscania.se

Anders Weberg
A seasoned film maker, he has specialized in the expressions that digital technologies provide. He directs movies from features to experimental shorts to music videos. The purpose of Anders´work is to mix genres and ways of expression to explore the potential of visual media.
More info about Anders: http://www.recycled.se

Robert Willim
Researcher in ethnology at Lund University. He has done research about the cultural dimensions of digital media and the transformations of industrial society. For the past several years he has channeled his research within this field to focus mainly on music and the arts.
More info about Robert: http://www.robertwillim.com

www.c5corp.com
http://artport.whitney.org

http://www.gpsdrawing.com

http://www.0100101110101101.org/home/vopos/index.html