MAT 200A GPS Art

GPS stands for Global Positioning System, a series of satellites and receivers that are capable of listing precise locations.
GPS uses 24 satellites that orbit the Earth. The satellights broadcast radio signals at a known interval based on atomic clocks. A GPS receiver receives the radiowaves and can calculate its location on Earth. In order for GPS to function properly, a receiver must be in contact with at least 4 satellites.

Detailed explanation of GPS technology:
Howstuffworks.com
Trimble.com
Thalesnavigation.com
Garmin.com

Land Navigation - People can use GPS to create routes, such as hiking routes or directions. GPS can also be used to get directions to where you want to go. Some automobiles come with navigation systems that are capable of giving driving directions through a small display or via a push of a button.

Onstar.com
Alpine.com

Sea Navigation - With GPS, sailors no longer need to look at the stars for navigation. They can get precise routes from point A to point B, cutting down sailing time. Coordinates can also be stored to return to an exact location, such as a favorite fishing spots or a scientific research spot.

Garmin.com/marine
Trimble.com/marine

Example at sea:
GPS at Sea

Air Navigation - Pilots can use GPS to get direct flying routes which cut down fuel consumption and time of arrival. Also, GPS provides assistance with landing in various conditions, such as landing in a rocky valley to landing in bad weather.

gps.faa.gov
Garmin.com/aviation/

Tracking - Through GPS, public safety vehicles can be tracked. If an incident occurs, the closest vehicle can be dispatched cutting down the response time and possibly making the difference between a life or death moment.
With GPS receivers, anything can be tracked. GPS can track the location of people (patients), pets, or possessions worldwide.

"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has mandated that all mobile phones sold in the U.S. must have position reporting capability for emergency 911 calls by the year 2001, and other countries are expected to follow soon."
-Jerry J. Huang
allgps.com

Article on GPS vehicle tracking
Article on GPS tracking issues

Digitalangel.net
Lotek.com

Movie clip of a cell phone trace

Timing - Since GPS satellites use atomic clocks, some industries use the timing precision of GPS to synchronize clocks. International banks use GPS timing to synchronize their computers so that transactions take place at exact times.

Article on GPS timing

Trimble.com/timing

"It is said that GPS will be the next utility, and that it is provided free of charge. It will, like other utilities such as the time, electricity, running water, and the telephone, become a part of everyone's daily life. A GPS receiver will soon cost no more than a pocket radio or a watch, meaning that everybody will be able to afford one. And the applications of this new breed of high-tech capability are limited only by your imagination."
-Jerry J. Huang
allgps.com

"Telepresent is a "magic" box with no wires that automatically sends images from wherever it is to others who are watching via the Web. People carry it with them for a short period in their life and then they give it as a present to someone else. They carry it down the street with them. They take pictures of friends. They take pictures of strangers. They take it someplace special. They take it someplace ordinary. Whereever they go, Web viewers can see whatever the telepresent sees. What to do with this present. Each person who gets the present must confront the questions of what to do with it and then the question of who to give it to next. "

Masaki Fujihata is one of the pioneers of Japanese new media art, beginning his career working in video and digital imaging in the early 80s. As an early practitioner of the application of new technologies to the process of artmaking, he was one of the first artists to use stereolithography, a technique in which a laser polymerizes a liquid resin as it sweeps its surface. He also created the worldœs smallest sculptures by using the manufacturing techniques for integrated circuits (at 10m and 100m, these works are visible only with an electron microscope). However, he is most recognized for his sophisticated interactive network installations and his primary concern has been to employ multimedia technology in order to examine the possibilities for communication within virtual spaces. His interactive works include Removable Reality (1992), which used an infrared cordless phone, and Impressing Velocity (1994), in which he used a laptop computer equipped with GPS to digitally map Mount Fuji, making it available for viewers to explore interactively. He believes that "reality does not conflict with virtuality: it is the complementary aspect of a similar space of life." Fujihata has exhibited extensively throughout Japan and will be participating in the upcoming Yokohama Triennale. Internationally, he has exhibited at the 1983, 1984, 1996, and 2000 Siggraph conferences (USA), Ars Electronica (Linz), DEAF (Rotterdam), "CyberForum" ( Lisbon), VEAF (Vancouver) and his work is part of the permanent collection of the ZKM (Karlsruhe).

Impressing Velocity 1994 at Tokyo ICC

"A famous modern technology GPS was used with laptop computer for collecting 3 dimentional data path which was generated corresponding to our climbing up and down Mt.Fuji. These 3 dimentional data were used to calculate the velocity in each part of the path and corresponding to the velocity data, the form of a cross-section of the Mt.Fuji was distorted. High velocity will shrink that cross-section data, and in the other hand, low velocity will expand the form of that section, because low nvelocity shows that the person is tired. The state of zero velocity, when we have a rest, will make an explosional form of Mt.Fuji." (Impressing Velocity Project Proposal 1997 )

"For this project, I climbed Mt. Fuji in the summer of 1992 and 1993, equipped with GPS , which can let me know my position in terms of latitude, longitude and altitude. First and foremost this was because there was a tool called GPS. I let my imagination work take off from there. ... I find products that are made unconsciously, without explicit self awareness, and technologies developed without any purpose, more interesting than a situation where a concept comes first, and then, you search for a technology to bring it into realization." (ICC News, Tokyo Summer 1994)

http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~masaki/iv94
http://www.ntticc.or.jp/Calendar/1994/Impressing_Velocity/preface.html

movies / images
http://www.ntticc.or.jp/Calendar/1994/Impressing_Velocity/Works/impressing.html

Impressing Velocity 1997 at C3, Budapest
http://www.c3.hu/~masaki/proposal/index.html

"Filed-Work has two different type of activities: Work shop and Installtion. Both using GPS which enables us to know where I am, for collecting movements of participants with Digital Video images. Collective memory in both cyber and real is the main theme of this project ."

"The basic material of Masaki Fujihata's "Field-Work" are digital video images that have been recorded in Tokyo's suburbia with exacte GPS-Data resulting in a topographic und temporal coordinate system. Fujihata transforms this system into a virtual 3-D space in which the video images move along the GPS-tracks. The spectator may follow these traces and navigate across the three-dimensional space."

http://www.ima.fa.geidai.ac.jp/~masaki/fieldwork.html