The twInternet
Posted by admin | Filed under Projects
Description of project.
This project, the twInternet seems only like a Google Map, with a few markers and pictures. Boring? Maybe.
The story of this data is what is interesting. The points represent places where I have been and took a photo with my cell Phone. The photos are then Geotagged and sent to a server (Twitter and GPSTwit for curious).
The points have all been physically visited, implying travel. A thing you cannot see from the data points represented on the map is that the data constituting them has also traveled a lot. It takes three different web servers to have these points compile and display.
Why were these points of data chosen? Am I a slave of my own psychogeography? Work, school, travel, play?
What about the device recording all of this data? What regularities does it follow? I don’t ALWAYS have it with me it must therefore follow it’s own laws.
When is the metadata recorded by the device too much?
I takes a total of three button presses to capture a scene and have it uploaded to a server.
The data that follow it is astounding for the effort required! You get :
-Time
-GPS Latitude and Longitude
-A full sized picture
-Identity of the uploader (via Twitter)
An anthropological analogy can be made by examining the points. Just like anthropologists extrapolate what prehistoric men ate. A series of points over a short span of time means that I was in a vehicle and not in by foot. Many points at one location means that this location was meaningful to me. Many other things can probably be interpolated from the study of these points and all of their metadata.
Persistency of data.
One thing I noticed while doing tests, is that the data sometimes is not accurate! The computer is only as accurate as it’s sensors. If the GPS cannot get a clear reading of your position and reads it wrong. You are just as lost if you trust this computer.
Another thing.
This data is volatile. Twitter can only supply up to 20 points. The latest taken as it were. Like the dream cities imagined by Calvino, these points only exist for an indefinite, but limited span of time. until they have been surpassed by 20 other Time/Location/User/Photo points.