This weekend at AAG (Association of American Geographers) Annual Meeting. I presented the following paper in a session led by Seth Spielman (who does some amazing work identifying “personal cities” through geopaths). And I got to hang out with the imitable Sarah Williams.


OpenPaths: A new approach to aggregating personal geographic data

The collection of personal geographic data from mobile devices is a ubiquitous practice of service providers and application developers. These data are being stored, analyzed, and monetized primarily by corporate interests; there is limited agency for individuals over their own data. Awareness among the public regarding the value of their personal data is nascent. OpenPaths, created by the Research and Development Lab at the New York Times Company, is a platform and a model and a platform that demonstrates the collective value of personal data sovereignty. It was developed in response to widespread media coverage of the obfuscated but accessible location record generated by all Apple iOS devices. OpenPaths participants store their encrypted geographic data in a cloud infrastructure while maintaining ownership and programatic control. Projects of many kinds, from mobility research to expressive artwork, petition individuals for access to their data in exchange for a stake in the outcome of the project. Ultimately, we would like to activate the practice of “participatory sensing” on a large scale in a way that self-regulates the creation of ad-hoc geographic datasets. Furthermore, within a theoretical context, OpenPaths moves beyond locative media’s primary concerns with connectivity, the coupling of data to place, and spatial representation to address the components of an ethical implementation of crowd-sourced geographic systems in the age of “big data”. How can we seat the individual in a mode of control over personal geographic narratives in a society in which locative media has become banal?

#speaking #AAG #geography #conference #openpaths

→ 2012-02-26         

Here’s me at the Internet of Things Meetup on Thursday. I presented OpenPaths while Jake evangelized Data Without Borders, and @edborden tried to get us drunk. Good times.

#speaking #meetup #internet of things #openpaths

→ 2012-02-26         

I recently sat on a panel to close out the 2011 Experimental Videoart Festival at Tribeca Cinemas. While I don’t typically situate my work as video art, it was a productive discussion to be a part of, with Kalup Linzy, known for his soap operas in drag, Columbia art professor and filmmaker Shelley Silver, and moderated by the young curator and provocateur Brittany Stanley. Of the works in the festival, I particularly enjoyed What We Call Ourselves by Sarah Scaduto, whose reenactment of childhood gestures captured on video hit similar themes to Knifeandfork’s Hand of God, and the rather musical 8 La Finale by Marco and Saverio Lanza, also seating identity in unconscious elocution. However, Andy Baraf may have been the best conversation partner, a artist from the 80s disgruntled with the tameness of form in the pieces whose own work has an awesome feedback-driven aesthetic. Many thanks to Brittany for the invitation.

#speaking #videoart #tribeca

→ 2011-12-21         

Today Im participating in Conflux, the annual psychogeogrpahy mindmeld organized by Christina Ray. There’s a great lineup of some of my favorite artists in this space, and it’s a good and contentious time to think about psychogeography in the wake of recent technological and social upheavals. Im presenting a series of recent experiments that attempt to outline my own post-locative practice and how it relates to data, behavior, and bicycling. More on that here soon.

#conflux #psychogeography #speaking

→ 2011-10-15         

I visited Ricardo’s media studies class at Hunter College today, and had a sharp conversation with his students about data collection and future modes of psychogeography. I’m a fan of Ricardo’s work, and I look forward to connecting more in the future.

#speaking #hunter #ricardo #psychogeography

→ 2011-10-06