Milk
Esther Polak , Ieva Auzina, Marcus The, Rixc Riga center for new media culture, Foundation Beelddiktee
A locative art project that traces how milk from Latvian cows is transported, processed and eventually consumed in another part of the world, by fitting those who interact with it such as farmers and van drivers with GPS devises. The map follows the milk from the udder of the cow to the plate of the consumer, by means of the people involved.
Creative Contribution
What was the significant innovation in approach or thinking behind the project/artwork? How can this be recognisably attributed to the involvement of creative practice?
MILK is a locative art and mapping project that explores the possibilities of GPS technology.
It intends to demonstrate not only the geographical processes in the form of the GPS tracks but also to highlight how individuals who produce and consume the product relate to the environment around them.
The project investigated GPS visualisation as story telling tool, using technology to highlight the human elements of an economic process.
While there are many projects that use GPS tracking technology, it is the personal stories that underpin this project that make it distinctive.
Arts practice in this instance served as a means for visualizing the relationship between economy and environment.
Collaboration
What were the disciplinary contributors to the project? What model of research / development was followed? What were factors leading to success / problems?
Since summer 2003 MILK has been developed as international collaboration project between Esther Polak, Ieva Auzina and RIXC - Riga Center for New Media Culture.
The project leader is the artist Esther Polak who describes herself as "the artistic compass." Esther Polak (written respose to this survey). Leva Auzina was a researcher on the project, Foundation Beelddiktee supported production, and and several other people undertook smaller tasks such as design, documentation and translation advice. Polak collaborated with software developer Markus The to develop the software for the GPS visualization, and the control of the syntonization of GPS visualization, sound and images.
The artist began working with GPS technology at AmsterdamREALTIME http://realtime.waag.org/ where she found that watching "one's own routes across a city evokes a special reaction and changes a users view of the city." Her intention with MILK was to "draw on these emotive responses to navigation to change a users understanding of how they relate to their environment. This included using GPS visualisation as a tool for landscape depiction, with a focus on the rural and its (economical) relation to the urban. GPS makes it possible to make those kinds of connections the subject of an artistic practice". All quote from Esther Polak (written response to this survey)
Values
What were the outcomes of the project? How were these disseminated to outside stakeholders? What models of value are implied by this project? What was the Impact of the work?
It has been presented as a multimedia installation installed in public spaces such as The Dutch Ministry of Agriculture in the Hague and at Cyberarts exhibition" at O.K Center for Contemporary Art in Austria. The installation continues to travel to different venues and to be exhibited.
A website still functions as an ongoing resource on the project and has been used to support the release of print on the project.
The project was exhibited during the agricultural ministries counsel in Brussels at the end of 2004, and was presented by the Dutch minister of agriculture to other European Union countries.
Art critic Julian Bleecker has described the success of this project in it's providing a platform for the farm families to speak anecdotally about the visualizations and what they revealed about their lives. For the artist, the project intended to contribute to the heritage of landscape.
Links and Resources
http://www.milkproject.net/press/press1.html
http://interactive.usc.edu/members/jbleecker/archives/004883.html
