Walk with landscape-reactive sashes: Fermyn Woods to Lyveden New Bield

The third of the three walking events I did for Fermynwoods Contemporary Arts again using the landscape-reactive sashes, this time on a 3 mile walk between Fermyn Woods Country Park and the National Trust property Lyveden New Bield.

This walk was to take us through woods and across open fields before ending at the roofless, unfinished Elizabethan building, so we were curious to see what traces these different environments would produce.

The results are below… For more in-depth discussion about the traces and how they relate to landscape, please see the previous post about the walk around Gretton, Brookfield Plantation and Rockingham.

We walked from left to right, and for each image you can click through for a larger version.

Overview of the route taken (click for larger version). I like how the tracts of rapeseed echo the yellow of the marks we made

The traces start and end at the Skylark Café. We were here quite a while getting everyone togged up, which is why the lines are really dense. They're long and all over the place because we were inside and the GPS data gathered was inconsistent.

The traces get longer as we enter the woods, and there is another cluster as we pause at the Complaints Choir's hut. These traces are from the bag that James was carrying.

Here are my traces from inside the hut. (Clearer if you click through to the larger version)

Inside the woods, the lines are quite long, but they get shorter again once we emerge onto the field with a clear view of the sky

Here you can see three different characteristic traces from walking in the fields: the first as we walk across the field of young wheat; then the lines decrease in length as we walk across grass; then the lines get longer again as we walk with the trees close on one side

And here we are at the end of the walk. We enter from the bottom of the image and, after pausing by the big oak tree and the moat, have an explore around the shell of the building. Then we sup some hot chocolate by the hut at top left before making our way down the path to the car park and sit in the shed whilst we wait for the minibus to arrive.

You can download the traces from the walk as .kml files and open them in Google Earth to have a closer look.

My trace (controlling the buzzing, in two parts because I had to change the battery): Part 1, Part 2
James’s trace (logging more frequently): Part 1

I’ve also uploaded my photos to Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_pugh/sets/72157629634011060/

Here are a selection of images from the walk:

Thanks to everyone who braved the drizzly weather and the mud to have a strange buzzing thing wrapped around them!

Walk with landscape-reactive sashes: Gretton, Brookfield Plantation and Rockingham

A collation of data, documentation and discussion for participants of the walk around Gretton, the Brookfield Plantation and Rockingham that took place on the 6th of May…

Walk leader David Craddock from the Ramblers was kind enough to let us infiltrate his 8 mile walk with the landscape-reactive sashes.

This was the first outing for the sashes and also the first time I had used my differential GPS set-up in a rural landscape, so quite a step into the unknown…

So many people had volunteered to wear sashes that there was none for me to wear, so my feedback on how things were working was mostly done by quizzing people as we walked or listening carefully to try and hear the buzzes!

Here is a screenshot of my traces from the morning overlaid onto Google Earth.

It was a long route, so the lines don’t really show up at this level of zoom, except for the ‘major incidents’…

Starting clockwise from the top, the first spray of lines is fairly apt, as this marks the spot where one of my GPS modules fell off! It was some time before I noticed, and a while after that before, retracing our steps, we eventually found it submerged in a muddly puddle. Many, many thanks to the lady (Karen?) who came back with me to help me look. She also donated some tissue for the clean-up and, miraculously, a few minutes later the module was dried off, plugged in and working again. Phew!

My lines disappear as we enter the Rockingham Plantation; not due to interference, but the slightly more mundane reason of the battery running out! Although this was spotted pretty quickly, it was some time before the logging commenced again and, since we were still hot-footing it to try and catch up with the rest of the group, we covered quite a lot of ground in that interval.

The sight below was a very welcome one and made that much sweeter by the flecks of yellow from the sashes and the cries announcing that they had suddenly resumed buzzing as I came back into range!

The above point also marked the transition of the walk from rural to urban landscape as our route skirted along the edge of industrial parks on the outskirts of Corby. If you click through to the original – and slightly larger – image you can just about make out that at this point the lines get a bit longer.

Each line represents where my two GPS modules think they are at a moment in time – one end of the line is one module, the other end the other module. Therefore, the more they disagree, the longer the line is.

Out in the open, the modules get a pretty much direct line-of-sight connection to the signals coming from the satellites – the modules calculate similar positions and the lines are very short. (The sashes would have given a few short, weak buzzes.)

As we make our way through the large warehouses and factories, however, the GPS signals are more likely to reach the modules by indirect routes, bouncing off the buildings en route. The extra amount of time this takes affects the calculations of position. My lines get longer and your buzzes get more energetic.

As our route bends around to the left, something happens to cause one of my modules to lose its fix altogether. Here one end of the lines are fixed to a single point, whilst the other ends follow the route we walked. This happens again as we turn off the road onto the Jurassic Way (I think I changed batteries here.)

So, an interesting set of lines that tell a story, although it wasn’t what I set out to find out about! The lines from Charlotte’s logging device tell that particular story a lot better. Below are some excerpts (click on the images to see the original on Flickr), or you can download the .kml files, open them in Google Earth and have a good ol’ poke around. Part 1, Part 2.

Overview of the route taken (no major incidents!)

Smaller lines get bigger as the group enters the dense woodland of the plantation

Close-up of the lines produced when walking through the plantation - here it's obvious that the GPS modules think they're much further apart than they really are

The large buildings of the industrial units also produce long lines

Clusters of longer lines show where the group paused under trees to take turns crossing the stiles

The tunnel under the railway track

Leaving and entering Gretton village at both ends of the walk

So, some nice results there – both expected and unexpected!

I really liked how the group looked wearing their sashes and the resulting traces tell some interesting stories about the physicality of the landscape(s) we moved through.

You can try the GPS tag for more blog posts I’ve written relating to my work with GPS around the world, and the full set of my photos from this walk is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_pugh/sets/72157629978908541/with/7002887160/. Edited highlights here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nikki_pugh/sets/72157629635144548/

Thanks to everyone who took part and to David for leading the walk.

Traces; Walking and Drawing

From the Fermynwoods Contemporary Art website… [source]

GPS traces from a walk in Fermyn Woods

During 2012 we are continuing our exploration of walking and its impact on our understanding of the environment. As part of the Corby Walking Festival 2012, artist Nikki Pugh will be leading walks that allow participants to explore the use of GPS data as a measure of the effect of open terrain, the presence of buildings, and natural phenomena, whilst walking through the landscape to create drawings.

During a residency with Fermynwoods Contemporary Art, Pugh will be exploring the landscapes of Fermyn Woods, Corby and surrounding area through the lens of locative (GPS) technology. Pugh currently describes her practice as being located at the intersection of people, place, playfulness and technology.

5 May 2012 – from 11.00am until approximately 1pm

Join Pugh for an exploratory walk around the centre of Corby, exploring open space and key architectural highlights from both the steel town’s past and recent developments. Collaborate in navigating an object through the environment as it reacts with movement and the locations it passes through, before sharing the resulting drawing, a digital cartography of the morning’s walk. Departing from outside the Corby Cube, George Street, Corby, NN17 1QG.

Parking is available outside Corby Cube.

6 May 2012 – from 9.30am

Pugh will join rambler David Craddock for a leisurely walk via the Brookfield Plantation and Rockingham. Participate in the walk wearing a responsive sash making present an intimate connection between walking and the effect of the landscape on global positioning systems. The approximately 8 mile route is part urban and part rural, departing from Gretton Village Hall, Kirby Road, Gretton, NN17 3DB.

Limited free parking is available outside the Village Hall.

7 May 2012 – from 2.00pm

Pugh will lead participants over a 3 mile route from Fermyn Woods Country Park to Lyveden New Bield, previously explored through our Encounters programme. The walk will encompass dense forest, open fields and along the historic Lyveden Way to Lyveden New Bield and it’s Elizabethan garden. Wearing Pugh’s specially designed responsive sashes, experience the walk through the lens of GPS technology, before sharing the resulting drawing.

Departing from Skylark Café, Fermyn Woods Country Park, Lyveden Road, Brigstock, Kettering NN14 3HS. A minibus will be available to take participants who wish back to Fermyn Woods Country Park.

Parking is available at both Fermyn Woods Country Park and Lyveden New Bield.

Additional Information

All walks are free and do not require advance booking. Please arrive at least 15 minutes before the walk departs for registration and to receive a briefing on the walk ahead.

For the complete Corby Walking Festival 2012 programme please visit www.corbywalkingfestival.org.uk

Walking is… the principal means by which someone encountering a different neighbourhood or foreign landscape gets under its skin or gets to know the social, cultural and physical terrain. Moving within different environments allows us to detect properties of sameness and difference and therefore form a comparative perspective and better understanding of ourselves and our relationship to the world.

Detours and Puzzles in the Land of the Living, Andrew Irving, University of Manchester

AA2A: production shifts up a gear and user testing commences

Aided and abetted by one Mr Catfood, today I launched into making two more of the wooden drums I’m building as part of the AA2A project.

Much bandsawing, nail-gunning and guillotining was interspersed with making a bracket to mount the servo on (who knew finding the right screw would be so difficult?! Respect to Sol for the moment of genius that made her think of terminal blocks!) and then testing the resultant tappity object.

In other news: Jupiter, the moon and Venus are looking rather marvellous from my back window at the moment.

Tinier GPS

After an enforced absence from the Margaret Street workshops, I’m bracing myself for a final push to get some serious making done in preparation for an exhibition coming up at the end of April.

Although I’ve not been able to get at the woodwork equipment, I’ve not been idle and have been working away at improving the code and GPS set-up that I’ll be using to animate the objects I’m producing.

I’d like to say I’ve built on the improvements I made whilst in New York, however it’s probably more accurate to say I’ve torn it all down and started again from scratch…

Here’s the kit I’ve been using up until now:

1 x Arduino clone (RBBB); 2 x bare bones Arduino clones; 2 x GPS receivers; OpenLog

Having initially tried and failed to satisfactorily read from the two GPS receivers via serial, I’d switched to using multiple Arduino units communicating over I2C. All built off the tutorials and examples made available at the wonderful Lady Ada site (and a lot of help from other generous people!).

A year and a lot of learning later, I thought it would be worth a second attempt at a one-microcontroller set-up. Having used Mikal Hart’s TinyGPS library for the Chin Up Chapeau, that seemed a promising way to go. And here’s the result:

One RBBB Arduino clone alternating between reading two GPS receivers via TinyGPS and SoftwareSerial (also based on work by Mikal Hart, available with V1.0 of the Arduino IDE).

I’ve been testing it over recent weeks and the results are a very close match to the lines I was getting with the original original set-up using two PDAs and mscape.

A walk through the city centre earlier today (click for larger version)

It’s not all about cutting things out, though: I’ve also added in a transistor to control a solenoid. Tomorrow I plan to insert it all inside a large wooden drum and see what happens…

Exhibition of Colony-related work at Phoenix Square

Following on from the residency I recently did at the Phoenix Square digital media centre in Leicester, traces of my work are now being exhibited in their public spaces around the foyer and café.

I understand there’s a short gap over this weekend to make way for an animation festival, but other than that my work runs through until Friday the 30th of March.

Transverse Sections of Manhattan

Last Autumn I was in New York and one of the many things I did whilst I was out there was make a few new pieces of work.

The first is called Five Transverse Sections of Manhattan, and comprises GPS error traces from 10 walks across the island of Manhattan between East and West coasts (or as close as I could reasonably get).

Using a satellite underlay to match the GPS data to the appropriate roads

Today I tweaked the scaling of the traces to get them how I want them and did a few trial prints at A2 size. They look good!

It's always nice when the lines get a bit of space to breathe in

I’m pondering making this work available for purchase as an archive quality print. If you’re interested in owning one, let me know.

Initial results from the Chin Up Chapeau

Having made a hat to measure my posture as I walk around different parts of the city, I’ve spent the last few days testing it and getting a feel for what sort of results it produces.

Diagram showing position, direction I'm facing and the angle of my head. Click for a much larger version...

Pretty much exactly as I was expecting really, which is probably a good reason to avoid drawing any sweeping conclusions from it – at least until I’ve got to the stage where I collect data without being aware that I’m doing so…

On the plus side, it does reveal lots of unexpected things – posing yet more questions in the process – and that, I believe, is the sign of a good tool!

For these renderings, green represents a neutral head position, with the pointer getting redder as my gaze is lowered. Here are some noticings:

The lower, horizontal section shows me walking along a fairly busy road: eyes front, head direction and angle reasonably constant. The upper section is along a footpath next to a river: my interest is drawn in all sorts of directions and this is shown by the inconsistency in pointer direction and colour

Close-up of a high interest area - head angle changes a lot, as does the direction I'm facing

Head angle decreases slowly as I approach the High Street, but returns to a neutral position a lot quicker as I leave it behind me

High Street Mode gets switched off as soon as I go into the Post Office, on another day it fades slowly as I walk away.

It’s becoming apparent that I need to include some sort of calibration so that I can more reasonably compare tracks from different walks. Currently, differences in how I’m wearing the hat are too easily read as differences in head angle when I put all the traces on the same diagram.

I’ve also expanded the arduino code so that I log date, time, latitude, longitude, altitude, course, speed, bearing, pitch and roll. I think there are some very interesting potential correlations to investigate (for example: when my head angle decreases, do I also walk faster?) and, whilst I may not be investigating them right now, I want to make sure I’ve got the data when I do!

Introducing the Chin Up Chapeau

[or the Shin Up Shapeau. Or the Chin Up Chap! Oh!]

The Chin Up Chapeau

I’ve been thinking a lot about how my posture changes in relation to whereabouts I am as I walk around Birmingham.

As I approach what I perceive to be high risk areas I believe I adopt a significantly more defensive stance: lowering my gaze and stooping slightly. Of course, there are hunches and there are hunches…

I made the Chin Up Chapeau to measure the angle of my head and log it along with locational data so I can see exactly how my posture relates to space. Do I really stoop, or is it, y’know, all in my head? Where are the danger zones? Are the boundaries clearly defined?

The Chin Up Chapeau sports a gps receiver [EM 406a], a tilt-compensated compass[CMPS10], a logging device [OpenLog] and an arduino clone microcontroller [RBBB] along with a few other accoutrements like a soft switch and an indicator LED.

There are still a few niceties to be sorted out, but here’s a visualisation of a quick walk last night:

Head angle, bearing, location ...and a loaf of bread from the Co-op

I’m going to log data as I walk around the city, but I’m very aware of how easy it would be to ‘fake’ the outcomes to match what I think they should be.

Or perhaps I’ll be concious that I’m watching myself and instead make an effort to keep my chin up at all times…

At the very least I now have an electrically heated hat to keep me cosy!

Location Aware artwork used on Speak Destination CD

Nearly 2 years ago I spent a day gathering GPS randomness around Nottingham as part of the Territorial Play event organised by Trampoline/Radiator. The photos went onto Flickr and I bought some new trainers and that was that.

Until The Luna Moth got in touch last month.

The Speak Destination album is available as a download, or you can get a CD (with lovely textured touchy-feely cardboard case!) for a few quid more.