I have just made two plan drawings in chalk, using GPS. A large one 
in Bethnal Green, London (about 1 km wide - almost gone) and a 
very small one (only two lines - maybe still there ;-)) in Riga.  Both 
seemed to have similar impact on people despite an extreme 
difference in scale, scope, and experience for the viewer.

I talked briefly about some of these ideas in the presentation last 
week at Ram5 in Riga.

The drawings made me think as I was doing them, and think again 
after I saw them completed. 

I thought of them within the realms of 'conceptual architecture' rather 
than conceptual art practice, an exploration of functional, future 
signage and the manifestation of invisible signals. Physical signage 
for the invisible.

The drawings became, for me, a mechanism for thinking about 
place and self, the body and landscape, and art: Canaletto, Richard 
Long, Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy, Beuys, Monet, Christo, 
Claude Lorrain and so on... [Locative?] These artists dealt with 
locations and sites – marking, with temporary gestures or 
permanent records, small or large 'events', or records of their time in 
a place.

The current additional technological component which serves to 
extend many concepts already explored in practice and theory by 
artists (and obviously architects) for centuries, is mainly one of 
precision (gps accuracy arguments aside), and in turn the ability to 
revisit and mark any locations, particularly indistinct ones, with the 
intent to repeat, communicate, or adapt an augmented experience at 
a specific place, either on a permanent, temporary or even fluid 
basis. This makes the addition of this technology a distinct 
conceptual shift, as it introduces the considerations of 'function' and 
'user' to locations.

In Riga at Ram5, as part of Wilfried Hou Je Bek's psychogeographic 
.walk, an' ting, he demanded we wrote poetry for him. I chalked my 
own walk with long/lat figures making and notating observations.  I 
globally positioned the shadow of a cherry tree in blossom [ N 56 56 
648/E 024 06 646], chalking the coordinates on the floor inside the 
tree shadow, and writing the time from my GPS clock beside it. Then 
I wrote a haiku poem about it.

White cherry blossom
Makes a shadow on the ground
Birds sing from inside.

pg
05/04


'location, location, location'
at EVENTNETWORK, 96 TEESDALE STREET, LONDON E2 6PU. 
020 7613 0300 
http://www.eventnetwork.org.uk/gomes.html

Last weekend...
Exhibition closes Sunday16th May 2004
with GPS and Stickers afternoon workshop (children+adults) 
12pm-4pm FREE

http://www.eventnetwork.org.uk/images/pete014.jpg
http://www.eventnetwork.org.uk/images/pete009.jpg




http://www.parkbenchtv.org
http://www.mutantfilm.com

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