Upon reading the paper "Beyond Locative Media", I was struck at what a time capsule it is. Locative media as an art form was formulated when people had little experience using PDA’s or handheld GPS locating devices. This art movement is an outgrowth of artists who were loosely organized under the title net.art. Although their art had nothing to do with each other, all of their art work involved the use of the internet and could not exist without it.(Tuters)

Although I am an artist who stays pretty current with trends in art, I was not familiar with Locative Media art nor was I familiar with net.art, so it was interesting to find out about both. I do remember reading the Headmap manifesto, when it was published in 1999.

"location aware, networked, mobile devices make possible invisible notes attached to spaces, places, people and things...computer games move outside and get subversive.

Sex and even love are easier to find.

Real space can be marked and demarcated invisibly.

”¦what was once the sole preserve of builders, architects and engineers falls into the hands of everyone: the ability to shape and organise the real world and the real space.

Real borders, boundaries and space become plastic and maleable [sic], statehood becomes fragmented and global.

Geography gets interesting.

Cell phones become internet enabled and location aware, everything in the real world gets tracked, tagged, barcoded and mapped.

Overlaying everything is a whole new invisible layer of annotation. Textual, visual and audible information is available as you get close, as context dictates, or when you ask."(Tuters)

Having used hand held GPS devices in employment situations to map landmarks, it was strange to read the development of this movement. It is interesting to see how these devices have become integrated into society in the 10 years since the .walk project at the 2004 Transmediale festival in Berlin or 15 years since the Headmap manifesto was written.

In trying to find a use for using GPS devices as an art movement, the author proposes that they be used to track the development of products because people up till now do not have an idea about all of the people involved with the production of something as simple as cheese. Most people are aware about the process that it takes to manufacture objects or food. They are also aware of the implications of manufacturing products where workers have good working conditions vs subhuman working conditions. In the mid 1800's, Dickens wrote stories to protest working conditions and the use of child labor. More recently, stories about working conditions in factories in Bangladesh as an example have come to light since the 1970's. These reports keep people aware of many factors which affect the labor force.

Recently, there was a story about an app created for phones to keep track of data used in cattle ranching. Rather than having to carry around many pieces of paper, the farmer could enter vital data on his phone, thereby making his task easier.

What I find more interesting as people become more familiar with PDA's and mobile devices they find real uses which give more control and change lives. It is no longer Descartes wondering whether he is asleep or awake and whether he can trust the information that his senses give him. People use nanny cams to determine if their children wake from naps or even if their children are being abused by caretakers. There is clothing designed with sensors combat infant death syndrome to tell parents if  their child is having breathing difficulties. 

Rather than a dark world where people are just keeping track of objects, many of these devices can provide critical information which can assist with decision making. Soon we will wonder how we ever functioned without them.

References:
Networked Publics Book  

edited by Kazys Varnelis, MIT Press 2008