Dustin York

The project brief is this: “Use sensors to record data about your day-to-day life. Create a sequential document which employs this data to tell an engaging ‘behavioral story’ about yourself.”



The approach I took for this project is that I wanted to frame a self-portrait in the situation of taking a day out to visit a history museum, an interest of mine, and comprehensively document the otherwise commonplace journey in the pursuit of an engaging narrative. The component parts making up the portrait of my experience were a GPS, a temperature sensor, a digital camera, the visitor guide for the museum, and a notebook for jotting down thoughts. It was my intention that these tools capture both an objective representation of the particular details establishing the particular conditions in that place and time, while also allowing space for the idiosyncracies that emerge as a consequence of discovery by way of actual experience. I did not want to script every detail of my journey, wanting instead to leave room that reveals a more natural story.



The medium I chose for my story and the way I presented it was entirely predicated on the unique pattern of the GPS points that map my time at the Getty Villa, shown as the red dots connected by lines. The points were recorded fairly imprecisely and haphazardly, upon zooming in to examine how they correspond to the places I had actually been. Overlaying the data over a map revealed that the greatest density of dots in the middle reflect the most accurate plotting points, reflecting the general location of the museum as a whole, but not to the level of detail that hinted at the specific path I took. The act of being indoors especially causes the wayward plot points, and so as the GPS signal becomes obstructed, it naturally embarks on a journey of its own to find its bearings. It made sense then that I lay out the pictorial scene using a poster, allowing the viewer to take in the overall activity and energy and then lean in for more detail on the sequential flow of the trip.



The layout of the photographs mimics the level of detail the GPS offers. They are laid out in a general loop, reminiscent of the square shape of the museum with a central courtyard, but are not placed with any idea of exacting precision. The placement is my hand at work reconstructing the parts in accordance with my spatial recollection. Every photo displays a time stamp, and I was able to cross-reference that with a temperature logger I carried that also sported a time stamp. Every photo shows the temperature it recorded at the time the photograph was shot. In so doing, I created a timeline in temperature. The final layer to my poster are the quick notes I jotted while at the museum, messages to the artwork and museum that made an impression on me, as I saw them as companions and characters keeping me company while on my trip. Each artwork has a story of its own that it has told over a vast stretch of time, I borrowed from the power of their qualities to form my own snapshot, in a sense carving my trip to the museum in stone as they and I intercede. In this way, I hoped to seamlessly meld the physical experience with the narrative experience, and to let the viewer follow the points as they may lead, wherever they’d like them to.




To get an idea of the steps I took to arrive at the final form of this project, please visit the process page.