Psychogeographical Project

Starting in week 8 we were given the opportunity to create our own psychologeographical project, this could include a video recording of a chosen route, or a description of the destination etc. It was all about recording different aspects of our surroundings and senses that we hadn’t noticed before (atmosphere vs. sensuous). I decided to test and try out something I had had in mind for some time, and had taken a look at in the past but had never really got round to. I’ve browsed ‘geo tagging’ on Flikr in the past and thought it was ideal to capture my journey from the Kimberlian Library on the Demontfort Campus to Highcross Shopping centre in town.

I go to Highcross pretty much every day and therefore as the days pass I no longer notice my surroundings as I robotically strut through the same old route. This time I took a different route to Highcross for scenic purposes for this project. Instead, I passed through one of the side streets which cuts cross Leicester Town Hall into town. I’d never taken this route as it’s a tad bit longer, so it was a new experience for me, an ideal opportunity to record something fresh.

I don’t have a camera so I was left with my own devices, although the camera on my Blackberry Curve doesn’t possess the quality of Carl Zeiss lenses, I’ve got to say the quality of the pictures aren’t bad! The 3.2 megapixel gadget captured my surroundings on the way to Highcross, occasionally taking a shot of significant signs of events or objects that signifies Leicester. I wanted to take a record of artifacts, atmosphere, weather and color, basically things that I’ve become ignorant towards. It was really nice to be suddenly aware of objects that I would come across every time I walk into town. For inspiration on this project I checked out a link posted on Blackboard of an example of geo tagging on Flickr Maps, I checked out this site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremyalisonlucy/map

Uploading the photos onto my Flikr account was a complete nightmare. Not because of the Flikr uploading program, but because I couldn’t remember the roads I’d taken the pictures on, so it took me double the time to work out the exact position of the photos. I used a great deal of Google Maps to track my route and note down the road names which took some time, but whilst on it I did learn more directions around town. But now that it’s all in the past it’s up for the public to enjoy, this is the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/49365182@N03/map

This project was supposed to be fun by exploring and taking into account of our surroundings. I honestly enjoyed it as it was a nice hot sunny day I decided to do it on, which boosted the mood. I would definitely in the future use Flikr maps to upload photos from when I’m on holiday. I think it’s a great method for my friends and family back at home to see where and what I have seen on my holiday. I have great admiration for the growing conventions available on the Web 2.0 such as geo tagging.