I was particularly excited to discover this work by Jenny Odell. Given the physical restrictions imposed by my illness and then Covid as Ive already documented I was in danger of not being able to gather my source images as i’d intended.
Odell in her Travel By Approximation virtual road trip, Crossing borders without even going there, the artist embarks on a wholly virtual road trip using Street View and then digitally incorporating herself into he landscapes. She does this very well, although this probably wouldnt be a total answer to the inability to gather images in person its a very interesting approach and one of the most interesting forms of image appropriation I’ve seen .
Odell explains “Travel by Approximation is the record of a trip I made across the United States by way of the internet. It began as something loosely based on a real trip I had wanted to take but never had, but soon took its own, much more reckless form. In order to travel, I made use of any sources of information I could find online, relying especially on Google Street View, photo databases (Panoramio, Picasa, Flickr), review sites (Yelp, TripAdvisor, CitySearch, Insider Pages), and virtual tours of monuments, restaurants, hotels, etc. For one real year—almost two virtual months—I transported myself into one place after another, both by writing a travel narrative and by using Photoshop to integrate myself into photos I found online“.
The project also included ‘The Ministry of Approximate Travel’ a virtual travel agency in which Odell had conversations with visitors about her virtual memories of places as compared with their real ones. The Ministry of Approximate Travel has appeared at the SFAI graduating MFA show, Root Division, and the California Academy of Sciences’ Night Life.
Odell describes her methodology, its actually very similar to mins in many respects.
“I set several parameters for this trip in order to preserve a sense of spatial wandering as well as the integrity of my source information:
1. I had to find things by wandering on Google Maps before researching them further on other sites (as opposed to looking up a list of attractions for a given city, then traveling to one of those destinations).
2. I could not digitally alter the photos I put myself into; I could only alter the photo of myself to match the source photo.
3. Each day of the trip was physically feasible, in terms of gas, food, safety, and a place to stay, as well as the number of miles or hours driven.
4. Every piece of information (photos, videos, articles, websites, online books) would be cited at the end of this book”.
I absolutely love this project, Odell demonstrates its perfectly possible to travel without leaving the PC, even creating memories and providing virtual anecdotes base on genuine experiences harvested from the web.
References:
Travel by Approximation: A Virtual Road Trip 2010. Jenny Odell