So I managed to get some kit off Gianni for the weekend to begin mapping myself in space using the HP iPAQ and an application called PathAway. After much frustration I eventually got it working! I tracked four different journeys throughout my weekend.

Track 1: 15/11/2008 22.05 - Drive to boyfriends house - GPX file

The GPX file is generated from the app PathAway by me tracking myself. It records time, date, longitude, latitude and elevation. The data can also be viewed in a simpler format here.

15/11/2008 22:05

Track 2: 16/11/2008 15.39 - Walk into town to buy pillows - GPX file, text file

16/11/2008 15.39

For my walk into town I decided to strap a heart rate monitor to myself and record beats every 30 seconds. I was hoping my rate would increase up and down according to the elevation of the land, which it did but it wasn’t consistent. My heart rate was very up and down so I did not get the results I expected. However linking elevation to heart rate is something I find interesting. - Heart rate data.

Track 3: 16/11/2008 17.54 - Drive home for dinner - GPX file, text file

Track 4: 16/11/2008 21:03 - Drive to meet friend for a drink - GPX file, text file

16/11/2008 21:03

I have submitted my Abstract to Geoff now, alongside my Chapter outline. Each week I seem to drift on to new stuff, really unsure where things are going but I am finding the process of researching interesting.

Have the converging boundaries between mass media and personal albums changed the emotional affect of the photographic image?
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The emergence of digital technologies has not only changed the processing and printing of photographic images but also the meaning and function. Iím interested in the boundaries between mass media/photojournalism and personal family albums.

This study sets out to research these boundaries to discover whether technological development such as the Internet and mobile phones has changed the emotional affect of the photographic image. It aims to question the function, meaning, and distribution of images in the 21st century.

There was once a clear distinction between news and personal photographs, amateur and professional, fiction and fact, which have gradually converged over the years. Personal media now crosses over and begins to replace mass media. The result of this is something I wish to investigate and question.

In Camera Lucida, Roland Barthes discusses the punctum, a term coined by Barthes himself meaning the detail that catches your eye, jogs your memory. He describes journalistic photos as unary with no punctum. He glances through them, interested in the world but does not love them. I disagree with Barthes. I feel that journalistic photos do have a punctum, often with a powerful emotional affect.

This study aims to question whether this is a matter of opinion or because of the way we now view an image. Why has this changed? Has this changed because of the converging boundaries between mass media and personal albums due to technological development? Does the same punctum found in Barthes Winter Garden photograph still exist? Could it have merged across and now exist in mass media? What impact does this have on the emotional affect of an image in the current day?

Below is the result of sticking glow sticks to my boyfriend to help map body movement. I experimented using different colours for different parts of the body and then photographed the movement with a slow shutter speed and minimal light. I’m really pleased with the results and after talking to Mike he seemed to like them too. He suggested my next step would be to use more than one camera and begin to build up a 3D architectural structure.

I just came across this and I love it! I think it’s a great idea to take an existing image and map it on land using GPS. It is a drawing of the final moments of a game of Atari Space Invaders. It was made over two days and is composed of 100 miles of GPS tracks recorded in a rented car.

After researching more into the work of Jeremy Wood I have decided that I would like to use GPS as a tool to construct my Space project. I’m really interested in mapping; my first initial ideas are to map myself and my journeys (on foot and by transport) for a week or possibly a month to generate a collection of all my tracks.

These tracks will become a personal travel journal, recollecting patterns and moments of my life. I want to some how annotate the space I use by leaving a physical mark behind, this could mean tagging space using technology like Semacode that may link back to my blog, an online presence that is personal.

I’m also keen to practice some algorithmic walking. Using GPS, a small group of people and a set of instructions determined by me. Starting them all from one point it will be interesting to see what results I get.

There is also the possibility in making my GPS drawings into an animation or a 3D model using rapid prototyping.