“It is as if more than four decades of postmodern critique of the Cartesian subject had suddenly evaporated... In the name of a politics of global connectedness, artists and activists too often substitute an abstract ‘connectedness’ for any real engagement with people in other places or even in their own locale... Socially conscious artists and activists would do well to examine the history of globalism, networks, dissent and collective actions in order to understand that they are rooted in the geopolitical and cultural margins.”
- Coco Fusco. Media Artist
 |
Greenwich Emotion Map - Christian Nold |
“In adopting the mapping-while-wandering tactics of the dérive, tracing-based locative media suggest that we can re-embody ourselves in the world, thereby escaping the prevailing sense that our experience of place is disappearing in late capitalist society.”
-Kazys Varnelis
“To practically explore this subject, I invented and built the Bio Mapping device, which is a portable and wearable tool recording data from two technologies: a simple biometric sensor measuring Galvanic Skin Response and a Global Positioning System (GPS). The bio-sensor, which is based on a lie-detector, measures changes in the sweat level of the wearers’ fingers. The assumption is that these changes are an indication of ‘emotional’ intensity. The GPS part of the device also allows us to record the geographical location of the wearer anywhere in the world and pinpoint where that person is when these ‘emotional’ changes occur. This data can then be visualised in geographical mapping software such as Google Earth. The result is that the wearer’s journey becomes viewable as a visual track on a map, whose height indicates the level of physiological arousal at that particular moment. The Bio Mapping tool is therefore a unique device linking together the personal and intimate with the outer space of satellites orbiting around the Earth. The device appears to offer the colossal possibility of being able to record a person’s emotional state anywhere in the world, in the form of an ‘Emotional Map’.” - Christian Nold. ‘Emotional Cartography’