Searchscapes

Brazilian new media artist Juliana Sato Yamashita’s project "Searchscapes" is a fascinating look at what the future may hold for how we interact with the world around us. It was inspired by an art piece by Jeffrey Shaw from about 15 years ago where a person could ride a stationary bike "through" a virtual representation of a city. The idea is to have a navigable three dimensional map with text correlating to site specific features.

As you navigate through the city you text telling you about the locations you are looking at. You also have a visual representation of where you might like to go. Immediate thoughts of tourists, cabbies, bicycle messengers and law enforcement came to mind. If developed for PDA’s and cell handsets it could represent a look at the next evolution of GPS navigation. Perhaps a logical outgrowth would also be heads-up text overlays onto what we see through glasses or windows as tracked by various positional sensors.

Not sure how interactive the actual development is but the map of Manhattan is currently navigable by clicking and dragging the small orange squares at the lower left side of the screen. The application is really RAM heavy so on computers that are not up to the work load you unfortunately can’t do much with it. Worth getting the flash plug-ins. www.searchscapes.net

Reminiscent of Char Davies’ "Immersence"  www.immersence.com

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