Massive art project engages public in mobile phone dot-to-dot
People from Aberdeen to Brighton have created the biggest piece of public art ever seen in Britain. Using camera phones, the Britglyph project saw people in 63 locations across the UK travel to precise latitude and longitude points, take a picture and place a stone, creating a digital dot-to-dot on a massive scale. Created by Moblog and ShoZu, a mobile service that uploads photos in one click, Britglyph has given the ancient Geoglyph a digital makeover and will exist forever at http://www.britglyph.com/.
Cerne Abbass gets an update
The giant naked man in Dorset is a well-known example of a Geoglyph, created by arranging stones or cutting turf. Land art such as this has existed for
thousands of years but has largely disappeared in modern times. Through geotagging technology, the Britglyph project created a 'digeoglyph', a digital
Geoglyph, using input from people as far north as Aberdeen, as far south as Southampton and 61 places in between in a wholly unique, collaborative and
user-generated art project.
Turner Prize torture
Mark Bole from ShoZu said: "Guerrilla art is old news and the Turner prize means nothing to most people. Britglyph is totally open, all people needed was
a camera phone to get involved. It's never been so easy to share pictures taken on mobiles with friends and family via moblogging and photo sharing sites
and the Britglyph project is the next step. Historical equivalents like cave drawings and Cerne Abbass were all created with the pinnacle of that era's
technology and are still important today."
Academic endorsement
Dr Joshua Pollard, Dept. of Archeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol said of the project: "Historically Geoglyphs had physical faces and their
size was restricted. The Britglyph project is a wonderful innovation, bringing Geoglyphs to life using modern technology on a grand scale."
Never been done before
Alfie Dennen from Moblog said: "The purpose of technology has always been to make new things possible. Instead of using GPS to find our way to the in-laws',
we've used it in a totally new way, to create a huge piece of art."
Britglyph - how it came together
From Aberdeen to Leicester, Leeds to Cumbria, and Manchester to London, people came together to create the world's largest geoglyph,
using phones and the internet. The project runs from December 5th to January 9th 2009.
There are 63 locations around the country making up the Britglyph. As people sent in their photos via MMS and ShoZu, the Britglyph came alive on the map.
The image is of a time-piece inspired by the chronometer made by John Harrison, the Lincolnshire joiner who solved the problem of how to determine longitude onboard ship.
About ShoZu
ShoZu is the leading provider of mobile social media services that connect mobile consumers with their online social networks, personal blogs, photo storage sites and other
Web 2.0 properties from the handset. The company's patented technology provides fast, easy, one-click uploads of photos and video clips from the mobile to the Web, full-resolution
photo and video delivery without compression, the ability to work in the background even if a connection is dropped, and other unique features that simplify and enhance the
user experience, plus a mobile advertising service that provides non-intrusive and behaviourally targeted ad delivery. The company was founded in 2000 and has formed partnerships
with some of the leading players in the mobile ecosystem, including Motorola and Samsung. For more information, visit www.ShoZu.com/AboutUs.
About Moblog
Moblog is a site for people who like to put the images and videos they capture on their phones onto the web. The site is a community of people from all around the world
sharing their lives, as they live them.
