PDPal — Mapping Without Terrain

A artechnology called PDPal (version 1, commissioned by Eyebeam) from several, several years ago, done in collaboration with Marina Zurkow and Scott Paterson. The project was to design a PDA application that facilitated mapping experiences based on a set of emotive coordinates — Social, Preposition, Texture, Speed and Weather. Based on how your experience was charted along these axes, your map was delivered. The “map” was a pictogram of the intersection of these coordinates.

It’s hard to describe just with words — so here are platform emulators for the PDPal v1 that will run on a Windows machine and a Macintosh.

Here you can download a zip file of a Palm Pilot Emulation of PDPal Eyebeam Edition.

Here is the PDPal — Macintosh “Desktop” Emulator. (It’s a DMG file (mountable disk file). The README file explains the three simple steps you need to take to make it all work.)

Why do I blog this? I was thinking recently about the possibilities for mapping built environments, like cities, asynchronous — out of synchronization — with traditional “grounded” coordinates. What does the world look like when it is “un-hooked” from the earthly systems of synchronizing physical locations. If latitudes and longitudes suddenly up and floated away from us, what means would arise for coordinating our place in space? For example, for the Smalltown project, the exercise is to coordinate movement through space based not on latitude/longitude, but on the existence of Bluetooth identification beacons floating in space. If we closed our eyes, and had no GPS and could only determine our place based on unfixed beacons, what would that experience be like? And what way of looking sideways at the world would it evoke? How would it force new perspectives and new ideas for inhabiting the world?

PDPal was very much motivated from this perspective. One of the main challenges was connecting the notion of mapping to this PDA application. PDAs at the time were gadgets for people with jobs and a sense of urgency about managing the minutiae of their lives. The idea of geographically uncoordinated maps, and maps coordinated by these five peculiar categories was antithetical to the sensibilities of PDA owners. It was a cute art project, but much less a provocation. It was a fantastic project, that ultimately had three solid commissions.

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