October 04, 2005
Field Works:
landscape + activity visualizations
"Currently close to my place in Geneva, there is an interesting art exhibition by MASAKI FUJIHATA called “Field Works” (at the Centre Saint Gervais). It happens to be close to locative media arty concepts:
Masaki Fujihata has worked for some fifteen years on new forms of visualizing knowledge, space and time. He is intrigued by the possibilities of recording three-dimensional data and has elaborated a complex yet ultra-lightweight electronic system that goes along with him in his travels around the globe, enabling him to capture in a surprising way the landscapes he has encountered. This equipment consists of a backpack topped by a GPS receiver and a wide-angle video camera to which are attached a directional microphone, a pocket computer, and an electronic compass.
Kitted out with his equipment, Fujihata records the regions he visits, inviting us to tag along with him on his singular walks. Each of the sites where these walks take place was chosen in terms of the possibility of developing a project there linked specifically with its geography and history. (…)
All of the material (images, interviews, spatial coordinates, camera positions) gathered in the course of these trips is brought together in a computer. At the editing stage Fujihata cuts and recomposes the itinerary along the route recorded by the GPS, attaching frames—their orientation and movements—to its tangled threads and thus staggering the shots throughout the space-time. Viewers can then see recreated on the projection screen the different views captured during the walk. These are exactingly restored to their spatiotemporel sequence thanks to the coordinates furnished by the GPS, which serves as a thread running through the reading.
This three-dimensional cartography introduces a topography that immerses viewers in the experience of a virtual excursion. They navigate in front of a screen, building other stories while following the GPS itinerary, which guides them through the twists and turns of a landscape that has been laid out by multiple points of views." [blogged by nicolas on pasta and vinegar]
Posted by jo at October 4, 2005 08:30 AM
