Goals for the Spring

1. Make a new website 2.  Complete 3 more works about Google Maps    3.   Go on six more shoots for the  "Navigation with Trees"  series      4.  Make a camera obscura out of the house I just bought in Germantown   5.  Line up a summer job in the city 6. Apply to artist residencies and exhibitions    7.  Register for a Beginning Glass Casting course for Fall

20°25′N, 136°05′E

A Project Yet to Be Titled

I'm ever so slightly tempted to title this series Through Googly Eyes, but is too light-hearted and the truth is that they Google is mediating both our view and understanding of the world is no laughing matter. Other possible titles include Google Sightseeing, which has been already taken by this blog, or simply "Navigation,"which is too boring. For now, this series remains untitled, and its boundaries remain (ironically) undefined. The first project in the series is entitled 20°25′N, 136°05′E. Plug these coordinates into google maps and you will see roughly the same view as below.

20°25′N, 136°05′E started out about new territorial expansionism, but that quickly turned into a subtopic--the subject of this particular project.  I soon realized that there was a great potential to expand on how society uses Google to validate and legitimize their view of the Earth and its boundaries. Google has set in place a policy to accept any name of a place claimed by a people. Hence the Sea of Japan (between Japan and Korea) is also indicated as the East Sea (Korea's claim). Territorial overlaps are also represented, not as conflicts but as coexisting sovereignty.  In the projects to come, I aim to explore the mediatory role of Google maps and how it has usurped from governments the power to determine boundaries.  I am currently looking at Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean.  Stay tuned for the next project in the series.

20°25′N, 136°05′E (60 x 30 inches) 2010...a composite of over 100 screen captures using Google Satellite. Click on the image for full size.

At 20°25′N, 136°05′E is an atoll, located in the Pacific Ocean.

The atoll at the coordinates of 20°25′N, 136°05′E has the official address of

1 Okinotorishima (Okinotori Island), Ogasawara Village, Tokyo

Located 1081 miles south of central Tokyo.

Population zero.

There are two islets: one 2 feet and the other 16 inches high.

Fortified with 60-meter diameter encasements of concrete.

There is an additional platform with a helicopter pad and lighthouse.

Japan claims an Exclusive Economic Zone at Okinotorishima, 154,500 square miles encircling the atoll, 400 nautical miles in diameter.

Navigation With Trees

The following images are representative of my most recent work.  They are works in progress.

I map a hometown that I only recently moved back to, after spending many years abroad. My family are only temporarily living here, and will soon move to the city.  This is Upper Bucks County.  Beautiful. Rural.  Calm.  And too expensive for us to afford to live here if it weren't for my parents. These pictures represent my reacquaintance with the area, and the idea that I am a native tourist.  Along side each photograph is an areal view of the place, sans any indication of its location, street names, etc.

View Trees in a larger map

Tree 1

Tree 2

Tree 3

Tree 4

Tree 5

Tree 6

Tree 7