A Heart from Space
participative performance, 2020
website, phone, GPS
participative performance, 2020
website, phone, GPS
A Heart from Space is a website designed for groups of people to draw shapes together using their GPS positions. Performing the work requires the participants to negotiate the dynamics of group collaboration through the website and individuals adjust their position in response to the group's movements to collectively create a heart.
The project originated from a conversation with Yo-Yo Ma around a performance of a previous work, www.grindruberairbnb.exposed (GUA). GUA explores the topic of networked action where each participant is given specific gestural instructions which create synchronized movement in the group. Upon learning about the functions of GUA, Mr. Ma asked if the system might be used to arrange hundreds of thousands of people across the midwestern United States, to form a heart visible from space.
This project grew from that optimistic vision, but places a focus on emergent collaboration, rather than coordinating movements at scale. In doing so, the project raises the questions of how the affordances of a platform can shape what is possible, and how design decisions necessarily exclude certain possibilities while making others readily accessible.
The titular “space” speaks both of the physical ground participants cover in engaging with the work and the top-down shared perspective that allows them to see the product of their efforts. This dual meaning points toward the key message of the work: the ways we see ourselves online can shape what is possible in the physical world.
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Visit the website here: www.a-heart-from-space.com
Credits
Inspiration: Yo-Yo Ma
Video: Isaac Vallentin
The project originated from a conversation with Yo-Yo Ma around a performance of a previous work, www.grindruberairbnb.exposed (GUA). GUA explores the topic of networked action where each participant is given specific gestural instructions which create synchronized movement in the group. Upon learning about the functions of GUA, Mr. Ma asked if the system might be used to arrange hundreds of thousands of people across the midwestern United States, to form a heart visible from space.
This project grew from that optimistic vision, but places a focus on emergent collaboration, rather than coordinating movements at scale. In doing so, the project raises the questions of how the affordances of a platform can shape what is possible, and how design decisions necessarily exclude certain possibilities while making others readily accessible.
The titular “space” speaks both of the physical ground participants cover in engaging with the work and the top-down shared perspective that allows them to see the product of their efforts. This dual meaning points toward the key message of the work: the ways we see ourselves online can shape what is possible in the physical world.
Visit the website here: www.a-heart-from-space.com
Credits
Inspiration: Yo-Yo Ma
Video: Isaac Vallentin