bsalmond /thesis /abstract

DANM MFA Thesis Abstract

POI

"The lessons drawn from dérives enable us to draw up the first surveys of the psychogeographical articulations of a modern city. Beyond the discovery of unities of ambiance, of their main components and their spatial localization, one comes to perceive their principal axes of passage, their exits and their defenses." --Guy Debord, Theory of the Dérive

The Situationist International movement employed a multi-faceted strategy in their aim to subvert a banal existence. They posited that the existence of the individual, its paths, decisions and perceptions are dictated by the ubiquitous presence of the spectacle, the tyrannical and distracting outward surface of capitalist machinery. Ultimately the strategies were designed to both re-conceptualize and re-energize the artist's engagement with physical existence. One of the more famous, the strategy of the dérive, was conceived to provide a framework for the shaping paradoxically aimless and structured experiences of sub/urban geography. The motion and ensuing experience of such travel maximized the exploration of what the Situationist's called the “psychogeographical contours, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones.”

Today, the global positioning satellite network has been synergized with the vast amounts of information resulting from countless census and survey projects. What was once the exclusive providence of the military, the accurate assessment of location via geosynchronous satellite, now has been domesticated and packaged for the consumer. Countless resources have been mobilized in the quest to transform this vast terrain of raw data: coordinates, localities, and boundaries, into useful information that furthers our ability to combine travel and consumption efficiently. As with many advances that offer technologically facilitated convenience, their use can also further entrench the individual within a hardened path of routine.

The POI project is an exploration of the ways that these technologies can be co-opted, and re-conceptualized in order to provide a user with a unique experience of their own surroundings, while also providing a critique of the way that technology and information shape our daily lives. The POI device will consist primarily of a mobile application, that on the surface will operate identically to a consumer grade GPS system. The application will present the user with positional information, based on GPS data, as well as their position relative to a wide array of “points of interest”. However, unlike the majority of consumer GPS systems, the POI application is designed with the principles of the derive and the exploration of unique psychgeographies in mind. The application prioritizes discovery over routine, and experience over consumption, and yet by operating within the same techno-scientific context the application asserts the same type of positional truths as other such devices.

In addition to provide a user with new ways of exploring their own suburban/urban geography, the POI project is motivated by a desire to interrogate some broader issues. These issues relate to the ubiquitous nature of information in the digital age, and from this the erosion of the boundaries between the physical and the digital, as well as issues surrounding privacy, surveillance, and the perpetually re-negotiated concept of public space.