Description of 3 works

From XPUB & Lens-Based wiki

http://userasanendpointofsomediameter.com/

The project is a web page geolocating the user's position on Google Maps. The page contains one button, which once clicked relocates symbolically the user at the antipodes of its real physical position by showing a pin on the same Google tool. The URL constitutes the title and also a pretty straight forward indication of what happens.

For creating this project, I had to code, using HTML5 to get the ability of asking the users to share their position. CSS was used for some simple formal adjustments. The biggest part of the work was to use the Google Application Programming Interface, one of Google's box of tools for creating the code that would generate the interaction. By getting the user's coordinates and applying it into a simple mathematical operation I would get the antipodes to apply to the map.

I wanted to do a project that would be, as with most of my work, totally web based although short circuiting one of the biggest assumptions when it comes to browsing the Internet. Content is not accessible the same way the world over. Very often we forget the importance of our physicality when we browse the Internet as if it was a complete disembodied experience.


Cristina's notes: Would be interesting to know why you decided on symmetry and how you calculated the coordinates - how you made use of mathematical principles. Physicality seems to be a running theme in your work, perhaps expand on that? Big themes such as internet content access across the world and physicality vs virtuality, would like to know more. Perhaps also talk about the implications of using the URL as a title in the Why section.

Wifi : an Island in an Island

"An Island in an Island" is a local network enabling the view of a "contemplative" 3D landscape. By browsing the Wifi Networks with a connectable device, a user can find the opened Network. By joining An Island in an Island, any new opened web page will always redirect you to the work, despite what the user inputs. This router didn't allow access to the Internet but just to the content it contained.

I used a router on which I installed the open source OpenWrt firmware. That way I managed to configure the object that would emit the wifi network serving as a gateway to the work. A usb stick plugged into the router hosted my web page (Html5, css3, a gif and WebGL Javascript). Then I hid the router in several places.

Using this strategy enabled me to not put the work online, but make it accessible through a private local network and isolate it. It is hard to watch something online without being interrupted by other content that pops up in the background. On this particular Network, the only thing accessible is the specific page in it and nothing else.


Cristina's notes: love the idea of an island in an island. Am interested to know more about how you will make the piece accessible to people, is it available for purchase? Will there be instructions on how you can download the files and create your own island? Will there be more than one island? If not, that brings a new set of questions for me, are you creating an elite? Is it a sort of mecca for internet enthusiasts?


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context : Reintroduction of the WHEN and WHERE. Art work on another layer while we are always layering things, private space in public space for instance.

122 x 59,5 x 10,5 mm

"122 x 59,5 x 10,5 mm" is a book compiling about 8 months of visual content generated by my Sony Xperia P smartphone. There is no real conceptual organization. Screenshots, pictures, paintings, icons are just bluntly arranged page after page. Also, the title relates to the device's measurements as a physical object.

I extracted all the images of the phone by dropping the folders into a usb key. Then I opened an Adobe InDesign file, preparing the number of sheets that would constitute my only restriction and added the images little by little, quickly browsing the folders while constituting the content.

As every person owning a smartphone, I generate a lot of images which I rarely take time to have a proper look at. Transposing these images into a book enabled me to really look at them, have another medium back up and consider them as the ensemble of some visual diary.

Cristina's notes: It would be interesting to know if there could be a system to display them digitally? What other way to archive your photographs have you considered? What is the size of the book? Interested in the notion of restriction, was there any visual hierarchy? Like the idea of levelling the importance of each image