- How I lost two cell phones in one week.



The Internet was supposed to bring us all together. Just ten years ago, the world was awash in bold predictions: The Web would obliterate race, gender and nationality. It would break down social barriers. It would usher in a new era of classless communication and interpersonal understanding.

well then? what happened?

"The Net is still a confused social space," says Andrew Shoben, founder of British artist collective Greyworld "and for most of us, it's still a very private experience."

In the meantime, however, diverse artists and engineers have been hard at work implementing networked technology into real world form and function. Incorporating the use of cell phones, GPS Systems, Stamp Technology. C++ with more mundane everyday objects. These artists seek to subvert technology and embed it into a more physical future.

'What can I do other than sit you in front of a computer and show you art?' - Where does it begin? How can I translate the actions and feelings of 'connectivity' associated with the world wide web, into real space, out on the street, in my own backyard?

What starts off as a disruption of the everyday with creative pranks, or simply the investigation of meaning in messages from nowhere. Usually results in interesting and unexpected outcomes.



Take the artist Thorsten Knaub, his latest project GPSdiary is an online archive in which the artist recorded his daily movements over the course of a year by carrying a Global Positioning System(GPS) receiver on him.

To get technical for a minute -
GPS utilises special satellites in the earths’ orbit to record the change of a tracked position on the surface of the earth. Therefore any kind of movement will be charted according to the latitude and longitude grid system, e.g. a walk to the local shop results in a small 'drawing', a day spent at home will be recorded as a dot only but a journey on the London Underground results in a straight line between the tube station where he is out of range of the GPS satellites.

Check his site out, it's a fascinating linear pictograph of the artists day to day movements.

Ironically, lost within this ever expanding multiverse of rapidly increasing networks are two mobiles belonging to JAYGOBLOOM Two phones in as many weeks! it's a bit of a pain but hey, I am enjoying the thought of being constantly engaged.