Monday, October 30, 2006
Biomapping
I love it when technology works with people to try to create and share the 'human experience'.
[via Fast Company issue 110 November 2006]
From biomapping.net:
Bio Mapping is a research project which explores new ways that we as individuals can make use of the information we can gather about our own bodies. Instead of security technologies that are designed to control our behaviour, this project envisages new tools that allows people to selectively share and interpret their own biometric data.
The Greenich Emotion Map:
Artist Christian Nold has been invited to collaborate with local residents from the Greenwich Peninsula to explore the area afresh and build an emotion map of the area that explores people's relationship with their local environment.
The project is set up as a series of participatory workshops that invite people to borrow a Bio Mapping device and go for a walk. The device measures the wearer's Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is an indicator of emotional arousal in conjunction with their geographical location. The resulting maps encourage personal reflection on the complex relationship between us, our environment and our fellow citizens. By sharing this information we can construct maps that visualise where we as a community feel stressed and excited.
I find it inspiring that such a very geeky/techy project is created by an artist. Not that I don't appreciate that he is an artist, but that the medium is technology and that what can be called the traditional 'geek' work can be recognized as art. The passion, devotion and effort that often is attributed to and recognized to artists by "the people" exists in the scientist. A different medium but the results are often just as inspiring and rewarding to society. Of course, they all have their fans, I don't deny that there are technology groupies. But it makes me happy when the lines start to blur. After all, why is there such a divide between art and science? Is creativity not creativity no matters how it's applied and what ever the result?
