As witnessed in my previous work, I again sought to bridge my physical, experiential and technological understandings of my immediate surroundings. This video documents an interactive cartographic experience. Given my tendency towards poor navigation, I began to photograph areas in which I would lose my way, specifically on Santa Cruz Island.

 

I extracted the geo-coordinates that were embedded in these images and created drawings of these sites of experienced lostness. The coordinates were then converted into markers on Google Maps, and the sketches were placed into correlating info-windows, made viewable by the hover of a mouse. I sketched Santa Cruz Island and overlaid it onto the coordinates of the island. By hacking Maps’ APIs and integrating this sketch-element, I was able to introduce a first-person narrative to the static and objective platform.

 

This reminisced on childhood hand-drawn maps, and even, times that predate colonialism, the web and satellite intervention. In a separate CSS text div, I included a poem that expresses American fascination with “losing” and “finding” oneself, so long as one can maintain total control. This notion of control is an extension of colonialist sentiment of conquering land, and satellite information has fed into this hunger for universal knowledge and power.