Walking with Data

David Upton

This work consists solely of the interactions between my website, your smartphone, and you. To experience it, log on with your smartphone to www.codedwalls.com/walkingwithdata , and follow the instructions. The system was designed to accompany a psychogeographer on a walk. Because of COVID restriction this year, many such walks have been solitary, with only a virtual link between the walkers, and 'Walking With Data' is a system intended to provide an intelligent friend, that can re-contextualise and expand your experiences, and challenge your perceptions. Your smart phone will start to talk to you, and offer you access to data. The system downloads Javascript to your phone, which manages the interactions. It seeks data from the web using API requests, and interacts with others who are using the system at the same time. It is intended to broaden our perceptions, especially in areas where these are enigmatic, such as geomagnetism, and also to build social interaction. It uses the Big Five personality scales to assess the likes and dislikes of users, and tries to understand them better. It is very much a 'work in progress', and was first tested out at this year's 4th World Congress of Psychogeography.

How to interact

Using your smart phone, log on to www.codedwalls.com/walkingwithdata, and follow the instructions there.

See the work

David Upton

David Upton is interested in subtle differences, in conceptual art, and in discovering unseen patterns and inter-relationships. He embraces the digital world because it offers him such a range of new opportunities.

After starting his career in the UK Foreign Office, he built up, with some friends, a small, specialised, management consultancy company, which organised crisis simulation exercises all over the world, for several of the world's largest companies. Eventually it occurred to him that he had created far more 'situations' than Guy Debord ever did, and from there it was a short step to becoming a digital artist. Inspired by the US countercultural movement, and British cyberneticians of the 1960's, he spends increasing amounts of time using small pieces of wire to pick the locks of the doors of perception, and seeking (legal and non-pharmacological) 'technologies of the self'.

His work has been exhibited or experienced at EVA London (2017), in the V&A New Directions series (2017), at the 20th Generative Art Conference in Ravenna (2017), at the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography (2018 and 2019), and at Goldsmiths College (2018, 2019), where he is currently studying for an MA in Computational Art.

He lives, solders, and is a flaneur in London.

Tags
Thing power  Expanded Terrains  Generative poetics   data  AR  generative  

David Upton

David Upton is interested in subtle differences, in conceptual art, and in discovering unseen patterns and inter-relationships. He embraces the digital world because it offers him such a range of new opportunities.

After starting his career in the UK Foreign Office, he built up, with some friends, a small, specialised, management consultancy company, which organised crisis simulation exercises all over the world, for several of the world's largest companies. Eventually it occurred to him that he had created far more 'situations' than Guy Debord ever did, and from there it was a short step to becoming a digital artist. Inspired by the US countercultural movement, and British cyberneticians of the 1960's, he spends increasing amounts of time using small pieces of wire to pick the locks of the doors of perception, and seeking (legal and non-pharmacological) 'technologies of the self'.

His work has been exhibited or experienced at EVA London (2017), in the V&A New Directions series (2017), at the 20th Generative Art Conference in Ravenna (2017), at the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography (2018 and 2019), and at Goldsmiths College (2018, 2019), where he is currently studying for an MA in Computational Art.

He lives, solders, and is a flaneur in London.