Working with QR codes and other forms of tagging that are ultimately reliant on databases, I am acutely aware that the tools I am investigating for use in my art practice, can just as easily be adapted for data-mining, tracking people’s movements and infringement of privacy. QR-codes are already being used in Japan on the 90 day entry visas. I got one last December. On one level I feel uncomfortable about this, but on another level, I know that such systems are, for the moment at least reliant on people who can make errors, have poor communication skills or even be downright incompetant.

They keep saying in the media that Britain has the most cctv’s per head of population, that we are captured going about our daily life 300 times a day, and that 1984 is our reality… Or at least that is what they want you to believe, yet the system is faulty.

So if I am watched so often and all my movements traced by camera and database, then with the freedom of information act you would think that when I need to access that information it would be there. Truth is it isn’t. The whole system is smoke and mirrors – and the databases are nigh on useless. The only thing that makes them work is our fear that they actually  DO work. We are being “kept good” by the notion that Big Brother is  really Watching when in actual fact Big Brother is a dumb bully who makes a hell of a lot of human errors.

The NHS, the Home Office and Inland Revenue all have proven this to me, which you can read about by following their links in this sentence.  For each of them, there have been situations where I have relied on my belief in  their databases to set things straight, and they have failed. Not only  because  some of the people working them put two and two together, but also because the databases are actually very rudimentary. Although this has put me through some great annoyance and frustration, I am glad that our imaginings are still worse than the reality. As long as we have a large population and under resourced government departments relying on juniors to lose whole CD’s of unencrypted personal information, Big Brother in his true sense is still a long way off.

I’ve just spent the last 2 days in a workshop with Branded Meeting Places project at Edinburgh University. They have been great!! I met with a diverse group of people from a range of disciplines, yet we all had interests in common which made the group a very inspiring one.

We’d been brought  together for a workshop on tagging, looking at how these may be utilised in linking the physical world with the virtual. I’d been invited on account of my work with QR codes, and it has definitely given me a great food for thought with my own research. In particular The Branded Meeting Places group have been collaborating with Mobile Acuity who create image recognition software, to come up with Spellbinder which on their website is described as:

“..a new interactive digital medium based on camera phones and image matching. Using Spellbinder, digital content can be embedded in the real world by taking a photograph of an object or place. The digital content can be released by another user by taking another photograph of the same location. Spellbinder does not require special markers or barcodes to be placed in the world and works indoors or outdoors”

The creative scope for this is really limitless, especially when I think of it in the context of my own art practice.

On the first day we brainstormed ideas surrounding tagging. In groups we came up with possible applications of tagging and presented them to a vote to take one forward to build overnight. As it was 2 ideas were melded and three dedicated programmers worked through the night and morning to give us a working application to pay with.

The application that was built was called “Vocal Thumbs” which enables people to voice their opinions in a way which facilitates social networking via mobile phone. We were hoping to use audio, but that was not possible in the short turnaround time, but “Vocal Thumbs” worked via text messaging, so we all went out, tagged parts of Edinburgh, found each other’s tags and tested the system.

This very intensive group working to come up with a concept, build it and test it in 2 days is a very productive way of testing a concept and gaining feedback in a very short time frame. I think though, it is very reliant on the mix of people involved. Everyone there was positive,  committed to research and motivated in coming up with new ideas, and this enthusiasm was contagious. That is not to say however, at the end of each day we were a bit tired, but that good kind of tired where you feel like you’ve achieved something.

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.

Channel 4 (UK) has launched a very cool site where you can take pix with your mobile phone of public art and send them to their server. They are then located on a map. This is an excellent use of locative media, the ubiquity of the camera and social networking.

At the moment most mapped public artworks  are in the UK, then Europe and a few in the US. Would be great to see some Australians posting works there. You can upload via a pc as well. Someone really should take a photo of whatever currently is decorating Taylor Square in Sydney!

I've just spent a few exhausting days in the studio, which I haven't done for such a long time. I had forgotten how the printmaking process makes you slow down, be patient and have time to think. I'm so used to zipping impatiently round a computer screen with my mouse that being forced to stop and mull over ideas while waiting for screens to expose has been a good thing.

 t's given me time to collect my thoughts a little more and think about how photography is forging forward into the domain of the 2.0's. We have Web 2.0 and Mobile 2.0, so why not Photography 2.0? Given the ubiquity of digital cameras,  social networking and the democratising of the photographic image (though I have my own ideas about this, more later when I have time) , it seens like a natural progression. Not may people yet have coined the term, though it has been used by one marketing company, and I suspect we are on the cusp of it infiltrating the mainstream.