Proposed features link

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Proposed_features


http://www.adventurecycling.org/

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Cycle_routes#United_States

art routes
shop routes


Know Your Place:

"The idea is to bypass direct ISP connectivity through nodes which maximise bandwidth and allow others to use it over a larger area. Headmap looks forward (perhaps a little too idealistically) to a time when wireless internet capability will be provided by cities just as street lights are provided now."

This is one thing that i've always been adamant about. With free wifi the possibilities of spreading knowledge and morphing communication is infinite. I was really hoping the Earthnet / Google proposal would go through. [sources here & here]

"Even more prosaically, there are ideas like phoning your keys to find out where they are. On a visual level, there is the use of signs and symbols, with cycle couriers perhaps offering their short-cut route maps to people new to an area, or more emotionally, a 'tag' on a park bench or a piece of pavement marking it as the place of an event of importance — a first kiss, perhaps, or a religious epiphany. So far, so harmless. But, human nature being as it is, not everyone will want to use their spatialised computing capacity in this way."

I completely love the ideas presented here, however it could create a problem with falsifying tags. As i'm sure most of you have noted (with much annoyance, i'm sure) not everyone tags things properly, or in fact, missuses them. Although this creates a problem, i believe a committee to prevent such tagging could be formed, and if possible the property "owner" of that space could choose to delete such tagging or to allow it to stay (such as blog comments). Because we all know there are some really stupid, pointless comments out there. Youtube is a prime example (haha, srsly, check out the link guys, don't be lazy).


Headmap Manifesto:
[too much info; to be continued]


Open Street Mapping Project:

Open street mapping was pretty fun to play with, seeing as how i took a gander at my old town and wondered about. Only this time instead of wasting gas money on finding where Placer Hills Rd ends i can do it by sitting at home at my computer! Which is pretty cool, since i've been living here i've bumped into a few people that come from the same county, and now if i wanted i could show them where all of the hot spots are in town without being there. Pretty convenient!
On another note, i think it would be really fun to assemble a group of friends and just go on a road trip, exploring the different areas in a county since there are so many things places like google and mapquest miss. Also: a collection of backroad shortcuts from locals would be nice....

GPS Revolution:

"GPS receivers require an unobstructed view of the sky, so they are used only outdoors and they often do not perform well within forested areas or near tall buildings."

Well that sucks... so much for mapping my hometown, its completely covered in trees! But i doubt that will be a big problem, seeing as how people use gps in the city and it still reads with lots of buildings around.
I found the Sextant to be really cool (although mostly because it reminds me of the Freemason's symbol) and after about a half hour reading about it i jumped back to GPS.

"GPS receivers can display time accurate to within 150 billionths of a second."

-so does that mean.... that there are watches out there better than the one i have?!??
Answer: yes :)





On Beyond Locative Media by Mark Tuters and Kazys Varnelis:

"Since its inception, then, locative media's practitioners have claimed an avant-garde position, insisting that their work is capable of not only creating a paradigmatic shift in the art world, but also that it can reconfigure our everyday life as well by renewing our sense of place in the world."

Its interesting to think of locative media as art since every time i even begin to describe this class to fellow peers all i get are a bunch of blank faces =| However, once i give them time to wrap their heads around it there's this complete shift of consciousness that i've never experienced before when talking about other art forms. There's sort of this free thinking that occurs when realizing the possibilities are limitless with what you can do. Over time i have come to realized that what's more appealing to me, specifically, is gathering information, or as the Tuters and Varnelis article puts it - phenomenological mapping.

"Broadly speaking, locative media projects can be categorized under one of two types of mapping, either annotative—virtually tagging the world—or phenomenological—tracing the action of the subject in the world."

There are so many things i want to learn about other people in the area, where they eat, what galleries they go to, where's their favorite clothing store. I'm completely curious and nosy as to where all my friends (and even strangers) go. If i could i would love to compile several trails of where other people wander and have them each make their own "playlist" if you will, of different city favorites and common hang out spots, similar to the Urban Tapestries Project, however much more personal. The only thing is you have to deal with a noted invasion of privacy. To some people that's kind of a big deal... so the way this information would have to be displayed would probably work best when interfaced with a networking site where such sensitive information could be monitored.

"This is a central question for locative media today, as it is for many contemporary artists today who are using research and development, or at least research, as models. Raised on a steady diet of institutional critique, this generation sees art’s purview as transdisciplinary and eagerly pursues projects that could be classified as research (Center for Land Use Interpretation or Multiplicity) or design and development (Andrea Zittel or Jorge Pardo)."

It seems like there is a problem with defining whether this is art or research, but why can't it be both? Like the first quote i mentioned, locative media changes how a person reacts and feels to space. With presenting someone the personal "trail" of another being, its up to the viewer to interpret it and decide what to do with the information. Personally, i would love to share how i would interpret the trails, however, i'm sure i'll have time to come back and reflect on my idea's more with the up coming readings.

Labels: locative media, trails