Multiplatform GPS software application. Presentation format: Interactive iPad with sound.
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Using GPS (Global Positioning System) has become an integrated and ubiquitous part of everyday life in today’s networked world. There are stories of people who trust the system too much and get lost or hurt and of its use for surveillance. But in general, it is perceived as an effective tool to help us navigate simple and complex terrain. Pure Flow inverts this use-value by revealing the noise generated between GPS data systems and multiple satellites, 3G networks and Wifi hotspots, as a tangible presence in the environment. It reflects the instability and fragility of Live signals, passing through cloud cover and urban architecture, absorbed by bodies, reflecting off concrete and refracting through glass. The outcome is a sliver of fluctuating white noise, responding directly to the device’s movement and immediate environment (either mobile or fixed). The user can directly manipulate the visual and sonic patterns triggered by fluctuations in data by touching the screen. Hence, the work transforms the GPS system into an instrument of abstraction or into a tool to explore the materiality of noise that is normally reduced to enable user-friendly communication.