Farm Animal Drawing Generator / Nutztier Grafik Generator
a location based installation by Gebhard Sengmüller
GPS Drawing denominates an art form, in which persons equipped with GPS loggers (these are matchbox sized GPS receivers, recording the current geographical location in short intervals) move along an exactly calculated route. This path then shows up, from a bird's-eye view, as a large-scale line drawing in a software like Google Earth. I extend this simple principle to an aleatoric, auto-generative drawing technique. To this, over a period of five days, I equip free-roaming farm animals (specifically, six cows and two donkeys on Fritz Voithofer's farm in Stuhlfelden, Salzburg) with the mentioned GPS loggers. In the next step, the obtained geodata is read out every evening, linked to a map and thus made visible as a drawing. By designating a distinct color to each animal, a layering of the different paths develops. After omitting the map, which gave the original context, an abstract, multi-colored line drawing remains. Unlike conventional GPS drawing techniques, I pass on any planning and entirely leave the drawing's design to the animal's stochastic movement and temperament. The results can be viewed either as animations or as large-size prints.
[animation video]
["making of" video]
[promotional pictures (images)]
[promotional brochure (pdf)]
[catalog text (pdf)]
Click on preview pics for screensize images (72 dpi).
Click on "printsize" for high resolution images for print use (up to 20x30 cm at 300 dpi).
All files are copyright © 2008 by Gebhard Sengmüller. "farm animal drawing generator setup 01.jpg" and "farm animal drawing generator setup 02.jpg" are copyright © 2008 by Wolfgang Seierl. Permission to publish is contingent upon proper published attribution to "Farm Animal Drawing Generator" and the subsequent receipt by Gebhard Sengmüller of a copy of the published material.
In the case of special requests or problems, please e-mail us at gebseng@gebseng.com