Ryan Griffis – For an art against the cartography of everyday life

Although locative media purports to provide tools for the creation and reception of counter-archives, providing a seemingly emancipatory shift toward self-representation, it is necessary to consider the affective qualities of the technology itself, says Ryan Griffis.

http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=176

Post Industrial Globalization has lead artists worldwide to create work that brings awareness to social and political issues. The author takes a step beyond oppressive topics to discuss ways we can positively change our world with new technology and new adaptations of locative media.

Locative media is incorporates commercial and private endeavors using geographically aware technology. According to Griffis, locative media has a knack for connecting specific experiences of “everyday life” and connecting it to a broad social experience. GPS technologies are computer systems that have to ability to coordinate location and transmit this information to other devices, like smart phones and computers. It is this media that ubiquity, the mundane, and the everyday become a part of everything and the everywhere.

“The condition of always acting tactically requires a constant state of sublimation and reactionary posturing, that while potentially liberating in the face of short term oppression, can never respond adequately to inequities.” New horizons for new technologies have opened up new possibilities for negative paradigms reaffirming “myths of everyday life.” We must creatively predicate ourselves to respond to the impact of the globalization of media.

Commercial exploitation is one way consumers have felt the changing tides. Publicly sharing information and experiences have given companies new avenues to create inequities in society. One example given by the author is the fusion of Google maps and crime demographics in Chicago. Consumer knowledge of this information adversely affects house prices in high crime areas. In this manner, some information is overlooked or neglected.

Mapping projects like Esther Polak is a great example of new locative media artist that have taken their medium in a new direction. “MILK” follows the production, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption of cheese of Latvian dairy farms through the use of GPS devices. This project brings largely foreign process, like cheese making, into a new context. Localizing production areas, acknowledgment of local history, and affirming creative processes are a few products of this type of project.

[murmur], a Toronto- based, locative project connects auditory sounds clips to specific locations. Phone numbers are left at locations that allow participants to access stories that attach significant meaning to spaces. This media gives special meaning to a location and gives information is easily disseminated to anyone looking for it.

Controlling society is one function of GPS technology that is also being explored. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) quantify mapping areas with environmental and social information. During the Cold War, MGIS (Military Geographic Information Systems) mapped urban housing and even disease outbreaks. GIS and MGIS systems could be then used in conjunction to create a new means to regulate social movements. “Just as walls and massive highways can serve to regulate movements between regions of a city, software, when connected to mechanical access points, can be used to regulate access to transportation, buildings and services.”

Prosumers is a new term that refers to productive consumers, of locatable content. Locative media is designed for people by people. But corporate usage has augmented locative software to analyze movements and habits. This in turn makes a simple enterprise into a malignant corporate ploy to find trends and make more revenue.