Location of I

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In an attempt to become the absolute citizen, Martin John Callanan published his physical location every minute for two years between March 2007 and July 2009. Every minute of every day since the beginning of 2007 I have continually published my exact physical location on the internet. For over 2 years this work has also been shown a gallery context at nine different exhibitions and festivals around the world.

Examining data acquired from locative devices, I have found it to inherently tell a story, though the story itself is not obvious. The abstract information is presented over a map with location pointers, devoid of detail and emotion, it’s always a record of sequential events: a story. A form of narrative that provides an audience with a means to create their own story.

The residency to develop this work generated the paper “An Ethnology of Solitude” presented at 9th International Festival for New Media Culture (Latvia). It has been printed in the At Home in Europe publication, Balsas Journal on Media Culture (Lithuania) and Migrating Reality, (Germany)

During the first 26 months of being online, this work received over 865,000 views, preempting various services including Google Latitude. “At the seashore, between the land of atoms and the sea of bits, we are now facing the challenge of reconciling our dual citizenship in the physical and digital worlds.” Hiroshi Ishii, MIT Media Lab