For centuries, mapping has battled the flat properties of paper and now screen media, always resulting in a pale imitation of the true journey. This artwork reveals a new type of mapping—interactive, dramatic and truer to the original landscape. In addition, the artists included aerial cinematography above the journey--a camera buffeted by winds--to add another layer of meaning and reality to their mediated journey.
Using a barometric sensor to measure altitude changes and a hacked hiking software to capture GPS data to reveal the path, the project also included miniature cameras tethered to balloons above the artists. The walk itself was designed as a performance including costume and choreography. The final kinetic sculpture poetically transforms the pre-recorded path into the shape of a circle.
Time: March 2012
Team: Mubarak Marafa, Kelly Cheuk, Trista Ma
My Role: Concept, Programming and Technical, Data
Context
Students travelled to The Mojave Desert to collect scientific data to then create art works from.
Obstacles
This being the first project I worked on as both a scientist and an artist I was really learning on the spot. I had to come up with several innovative ways to solve the hurdles we came across.
