The Signals in the City symposium went well, and it was a very interesting day over all. I was really inspired by the first talk of the day by Jen Southern of Running Stitch. Running Stitch is a group of  collaborators: Jen Southern, Jen Hamilton and Chris St Amand  working with GPS to create artworks which map out the paths that people take through a city. Participants are given a  GPS enabled device (in this case a Nokia phone) which has their software loaded onto it. The path the participants take as they walk around a city is mapped via the GPS and then projected onto a large canvas in the gallery space where volunteers stitch the path taken by the person walking. By the end of the exhibition an intricate and abstract tapestry of people’s journeys has evolved.  

For me the intrigue in this work is not in the final piece, but actually in the processes taken to get to the “finished artwork”. I like the idea of working with people who are part of a place, and the stories that emerge from people’s journeys. Jen’s discussion of how Running Stitch’s projects have evolved over the years also was really interesting, and helps me put my own development and work into realistic perspective. These things take a long time – they took 3 years to develop the software needed to create the works…..

The other really interesting talk at the symposium was that of Chaos Computer Club, which is basically a whole bunch of devoted hackers who though hacking into systems create some great stuff. The talk was mostly focused on Blinken Lights  which started off as a project in an old building in Berlin. The windows of the building emulate pixels and are lit up to create different images. The idea is not unique, but the way in which is was done is exceptionally clever. I think the thing that resonated with me the most was that just by coincidence the day it started was 9/11 and Chaos Computer Club, in a desire to comfort people and make them feel safer displayed a beating heart for a few days… so the cynics of the world may think this tacky, but at a time like that I think that it was the best thing they could have done. As the project progressed, Chaos Computer Club invited the public to create animations for the windows, created by turning on and off a light – which in my opinion really screams Emperor’s New Clothes at Martin Creed’s Turner prize winning ridiculous light.

QR code add ons and widgets are popping up everywhere it seems. Though what people are actually doing with them I have no idea. Two "barcode" readers have been developed for Firefox: The Barcode 0.1.2 developed by Duncan Sample and James Carter, and the Mobile Barcoder by Geek Shadow.

 I've downloaded The Barcode 0.1.2 which when I roll over the word "Barcode" that now appears on the bottom left corner of my browser, a QR code appears, but really it is quite useless - I can't screen grab it to actually use anywhere else,  and I can't see what the point is. Perhaps its not working properly on my setup (MacBook Pro latest version of Firefox). I mean I'm hardly going to surf the internet on my mobile phone at the same time as on my laptop, so I don't get it.... I've not yet tried the Mobile Barcoder, but since it says its experimental and so far only 3 people have downloaded it. I don't think I've fallen behind the game yet...

Mobilebarco.de is a German company who have developed a wordpress QR widget and they've also created a facebook app, which I have just added to my account. It provides a QR code of your facebook profile, and displays it on your profile page, which of course is redundant since you are already there anyway. Though, at least with the facebook app, you can download the image from facebook and have a .png file to use with other media. I've set my privacy pretty high on facebook, and I wonder whether the QR code profile link is really that secure. I am thinking that it would have to be... surely...  but then again developers overlook the simplest things sometimes... shall test it and see.

 I'm sure there are more out there, so shall do some trawling and see what I come up with. Any suggestions welcome!