msdm: mobile strategies of display & mediation

[in progress]

On the weekend of 21-22 august, the workshop Satellite voyeurism brough together at the HMKV in Dortmund a group of media artists, producers and technologists to share a vast ground of experiences in the domain of satellite theory and practice, from image capturing to programming and hobbyism, with incursions into critical studies, art field and hactivism. The two day encounter took place amidst the current exhbition on display History will repeat itself (curated by Inke Arns and Gabriele Horn with Katharina Fichtner) - which provided a background to issues of historical accountability, assimetrical transparency and imbalances of memory and worked out as a leit-motif throughout the proceedings, pointing to the urgency of counter-strategies to dominant industrial and governmental models of satellite data reception and distribution.

Francis Hunger, organizer of the workshop with the HMVK team, presented A few comments on the success of google earth, a lecture that reviewed fifty years of satellite history, following a schematic outline of seven topics

1-an overview of use satellites which are used for producing satellite images
Francis, who has also recently published the Sputnik Manifesto and is organising The International Sputnik Day 2007 reminded the audience that the launch of the Russian Sputnik 50 years ago marked the beginning of a technological development that brought in what is understood as globalisation today. Since then an increasing number of satellites send & receive data and contribute to acceleration of data flow and exchange in economic field, that support an ongoing change from national to transnational and postfordistic capitalism.
He also placed the current workshop as a follow-up to the workshop How i learned to love rfid he organised at HMKV in May 2006, with cultural producers and engineers reflecting on what they understand as practical problems arising from a tendency for global logistics and circulation of goods.
In his view, google’s historical precedents include: sputnik (1957: USSR, corona (1960+ USA), Zenith (1962+: USSR), landsat (1972+, USA), SPOT (1980s+ Fr; commercial site) .
On other hand, his overview of common virtual world software/ web interface include:
consumer & small business: google maps / google earth microsoft virtual earth/microsoft live earth
science: nasa world wind
science commerce ESRI ArcGIS
2-some historical aspects of the development of google earth software
display of data on demand via internet up contains data accumulated that is up to 3 yrs. old. Zapping through Neal Stephenson’s 1992 science fiction novel, Snow Crash, whose Earth software owned by the Central Intelligence Corporation was admittedly the inspiration behind virtual globes, one of Google Earth’s creators was the co-founder of keyhole earth viewer 1.7.2. and another founder worked for linden lab (2nd life)

3-a rough description of the infrastructure behind it
the secrecy behind Google Earth’s basic infrastructure raises several questions evoking dystopian scenarios not unlike those of Snow Crash, concerning: where are the servers located? how does the database look like? how is it acquired? Who decides?
Some data is in ireland, other in usa, with the current strategy being to spread the data around the worlds in a decentralised worldwide server infrastructure, whose access points include: geo.keyhole.com / auth.keyhole.com and kh.google.com
4-overview of the services google provides with goggle earth
google acquires the raw data from nasa and processes it , geodata layer comes protected with NASA’s copyright , plus that of the agency providing aerial photography at the zoom-in level. The centres and fringes of economic systems become apparent at the level of image resolution and availability, with Africa for example, having less imagery available or the blurring out of sensitive regions , a phenomenon of selective availability of image data that contradicts the democratisation of mapping implied din Google Earth rhetorics

5-some aspects regarding web2.0 and user generated content
google earth and google map features allows for mymaps overlays to be used with google maps
as well as the availability of code for including google maps in your own site
although google street view- with its panoramic view at street level- has been raising privacy issues
interesting point> user interaction web 2.0- with instance sin which a form of social bookmarking- the placemarks- can be published and then shared w/ other users.
the model of google is to exploite “collective knowledge”, So called ’taxi-driver “knowledge or bottom-up knowledge
with ngo links, versions of google earth pro to support the work of ngos
comparable to taxidriver knowledge
determining advertisement using interest and map-based location information
in which user generated content generates revenue for Google Alerts
the merging w/ ad senses etc
6-possible future use
combine google earth and map w/other like google news
and orkut (community portal to share with others), blogger.com (also owned by google) and youtube for geotagged video
google stock photo attached to locations
google base beta allows o sell things
mapview-googlemap interface
attach imags or other goods to location
geo-browsing 3d browser
panoramia- used view tagged imags and panoramas to be integrated
unmanned aerial vehicles ( drones)
ranking of geodata to diffentiate betweent interesting & less interesting data
integration also w/ gaming industries

7-an introduction to criticism regarding the use of satellite images in general
google state you keep control for what you add but by adding a placemark you give the company the right to make them available to other companies (revenue for google and not for you:
a very smart model that fits into a postfordistic scenario)

Regine debatty started w/ the story of icarus, the character from greek myhtology, flying like a bird,  in and out, resembling something magical about google earth and maps, a dimension where everyone can be icarus, without the wings or the need for the the gryphon wingsuit, a wearable parachut -gadget consisting of a one- man’s flying wings.

Cartography has always been associated w/ power, whilst before you coudn’t get maps and manipulate them as today, current  availability of instantaneous spatial representations satisfies dominant fetichism for maps, exemplified in mainstream projects such as the london underground mirror, google maps mania or the us strip clubs map.
Amidst this trend, artists projects engaging with popular culture aim to present alternative mappings, where social and political interventions are tested out, if not clearly articulated, for purposes of better leaving or active regaining of control from hegemonic status quo.

garbage scout-something you dump in the street can be a treasure for someone else
started in ny spread to other cities, you see somehting in a city, old tv, take a picture, send sms to GS w/ location for people to come and collect it; avery generous project w/ resistance to shopping

terravision, by art+com, 1996
first interactive installation (10 yrs before google earth) to provide a virtual rendition of geodata, incluidings atellite imagery and aerial photography

golden gate fly over by michal naymark, 1980s
flight plan special camera in helicopter,

delocator, finishing school
uses google earth to find non-corporate cafe, book shop or movie theatre near you
you log on choose yr city, on the left locations star bucks, on the right non-franchise café

biomapping , c nold
interaction designer

neighbourhood satellites by Myriel Millicevic