DATAMAP
Jim Costanzo

 

I am submitting work for the online mapping project. Below is a proposal that includes a history and plans for a website that is currently in the planning stages.

I have been working on a series called the datamap. The work has been shown as multimedia installations with fotos, text and video. The work documents my activities as an artist/activist.

The 3 videos vary in nature, however, The Scream does feature maps.

There is also a public art component that involves billboards.

I have tried sending jpgs but my emails have been rejects because there is a limit to the file size.

HISTORY:
The datamaps trace my activities through bank and credit card transactions, Global Position System GPS readings as well as EZPass auto toll booths and MetroCard? subway activities. Surfing the Internet and email have also been incorporated into the artwork. I began developing the datamap series in 1998 with the Transaction Profile, an artwork I created in Vermont and upstate New York. At that time I had my partner make simulated surveillance videos that recorded each time I used a credit or band card. The work originally dealt with issues of identity, commodification and surveillance, later 9–11 and the Patriot Act would add another dimension to the work. However, it was never my intention to create a simple record of random events, I consciously combined the mundane with performances that introduced social content into the Transaction Profile. This was accomplished by documenting performances at the Susan B. Anthony Museum, Frederick Douglass’ house, the Woman’s Hall of Fame and a failed attempt to locate John Brown’s birthplace. The next year Transaction Profile evolved into the Tourist Pilgrimage, an artwork created in Europe. In 2000 my work took a more pointed turn. I became incensed that the American presidential election was decided by disenfranchising large portions of African-American? voters from Florida. I decided to document my life as an artist/activist by transforming the Transaction Profile and Tourist Pilgrimage into a datamap. I documented my activities at protests against the inauguration, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the World Trade Organization meeting in New York City and the Patriots Act’s assault on civil liberties. datamap_2001.02 combined political activism with the commonplace activities of shopping for groceries and going to movies. The datamap also addressed issues involving corporate media, propaganda films and the Independent Media movement. These activities were informed by my experiences as a New Yorker from lower Manhattan whose neighborhood was closed to the public for the week following 9–11. Last fall I expanded the artwork to datamap_2001.04, another multimedia installation that added another two years of protests into the mix.

PROPOSED:
It is my intention to create a website that combines information from the previous datamaps with new material that will be posted online in real time. All of the data will be stored in a dynamic, searchable database. Viewers will be allowed to select records from different categories or to randomly search the database according to subject, dates or keywords. The search engine will also allow cross-referencing of the topics. The viewer will be allowed to comment on their observations in forms that mimic official documents of the FBI and Homeland Security. A cell phone with foto, video and GPS functions will be used to document bank and credit card transactions, MetroCard?, EZPass and other electronic activities. The phone will be programmed to send an email directly to the website for real time postings. All web surfing and email will also be automatically posted. I am currently researching tracking devises that would give constant GPS readings of my location, which would also be posted in real time. What I propose to create is a visual simulation of the database that corporations and governments surreptitiously collect on those individuals fortunate enough to be plugged into the global economy. The datamap is both an accurate record and at the same time a calculated performance. This variation on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is designed to demonstrate that observation changes those who are observed.