[Sigia-l] PDPal alpha - a public art project for PDA's

[Scott Paterson]

Hi all,
I recently completed the alpha phase for an art project called "PDPal" for
PDA's and was wondering if the members of this list would be interested in
giving feedback about the project. I don't want to spam the list with the
application but it is available for download at www.pdpal.com. For those of
you who don't own or have access to a PalmOS-based PDA, I can send, upon
request, a stand alone version(2.3MB) for PC's that will run on your
desktop.

I am making a presentation of PDPal at the Doors of Perception conference
next month and would love to get the project out there and hear feedback.
Below is a description of the project.

I like forward to your comments.
Best regards,
[sgp]

+ + +

About PDPal
PDPal is a public art project for PDA's (personal digital assistants) in
which users create pictographic maps, noting and exchanging moments from
their urban experience. PDPal is the first art project to use the mobile
platform as a mediating and recording device in order to transform everyday
actions into a dynamic portrait.

Currently in its first version, PDPal is hosted by an "urban park ranger"
agent named Malewski. Users are prompted to collect and share their maps
with other users via the infrared beaming capability of PDA's.  User's are
able to add notes to their maps, and then "beam" their maps with the notes
to other users.  In the next version, PDPal will track where maps have been
beamed from user to user throughout the world.  Using hot-sync technology,
PDPal will upload users' maps to the PDPal server, thereby extending the
application to the web.

PDPal transforms our conventional understandings about maps and geography.
When PDPal's users record their "position" as a set of "emotional
coordinates", they are considering their experiences in the city as
something beyond just street addresses and intersections.  The city of grids
becomes the city of experiences.  By inhabiting both the real and virtual
realms, PDPal transforms the PDA into a device for writing and visually
rendering your very own city of experiences.

"We think of PDPal as an emotional Global Positioning System," says
Paterson, one of the three-artist team.  Evocative of Italo Calvino's
Invisible Cities in the ambitions of transforming the everyday or static
place into a personal experience, PDPal relies on fluid emotional qualifiers
to define social place, instead of the formal precision of latitudes and
longitudes, or street addresses and zipcodes.

The current version of PDPal is on exhibit in installation form at Eyebeam
Atelier in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City as part of the group
show, "Beta Launch".  Malewski - a retired taxi driver specific to Chelsea's
primary, non-art related industry - is one of 10 Urban Park Rangers in
development. Each park ranger is developed specifically for a particular
neighborhood.

PDPal is distributed through a beaming box developed by the public art
organization Creative Time, as well as through the internet at
www.pdpal.com.  Through the beaming box - on constant "beam mode" - PDPal is
offered freely in storefronts, galleries, lobbies, retail locations and
elsewhere.  The final version of PDPal will launch during the Summer 2003 at
the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.  PDPal will also be made available
through ten beaming boxes throughout New York City as part of Creative Time'
s wireless initiative.

About the artists
PDPal was created by polymedia artist Marina Zurkow and architect Scott
Paterson in collaboration with technologist Julian Bleecker. The project
conceptually merges Zurkow's work in experience design, narrative and
character development  with Paterson's interest in the interface between
physical and virtual space. Bleecker brings expertise in mobile platforms
and a passion for technology as a mode of cultural production.

Zurkow is best known for her animated internet series, "Braingirl" which
screened at Sundance, the Rotterdam Film Festival and on MTV.

Paterson's work seeks the possibility for "architecture", as a protocol
between the virtual and the real, that is an interface between the activity
of our daily lives and the space of the internet.

Bleecker's work focuses on the material and semiotic means by which
knowledge about the world is established, and how technology is able to
create playful and serious contestations as to the sanctity of this
knowledge.  Prior to PDPal, his work has been largely as an essayist,
reviewer and commentator.  PDPal represents his first serious foray into the
realm of technology as artistic practice.

About Creative Time
Creative Time, a New York-based nonprofit organization, has commissioned and
presented adventurous public arts projects of all disciplines. Creative Time
co-commissioned PDPAL with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

About Eyebeam
Eyebeam Atelier is a not-for-profit new media arts organization established
to provide access, education, and support for students, artists, and the
general public in the field of art and technology. PDPAL was developed
during an artists' residency in the summer of 2002, and is part of Eyebeam's
"Beta Launch" group exhibit, running Oct 15- Dec 1, 2002.

About the Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center, a pioneer and catalyst for new media and traditional
forms of art granted PDPAL an "Emerging Artists, Emergent Media" grant in
2002, with support from the Jerome Foundation. The Walker Art Center is a
co-commissioner of PDPAL with Creative Time in New York.

About Palm, Inc
Palm, Inc., a pioneer in mobile and wireless Internet solutions and the
world leader in handheld computing, was founded in 1992. Palm, Inc
generously supported PDPal through a donation of Palm Pilots.