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This project is modern, technological adaptation of the way that animals and ancient seafarers navigate the world. The device uses a microcontroller with a magnetic compass and accelerometer to counting a person's footfalls and determine their direction of heading. The device is a totally personal and autonomous navigation system that does not rely on any external technological systems such as satellites. The system allows a purely body-centred way of mapping our encounters with the world. Due to the unique way the the mapping system works, it allows to be used in spaces, where GPS would not work such as underground or in buildings.

It could be interesting to setup situations where workshop participants explore tunnels or similar hard to map/visualise spaces. For the workshop I am proposing, to build 3 devices that participants can borrow to walk with for a period of time. They can explore places that they know well or those that are unfamiliar to them. All they have to do is carry the Dead Reckoning device in their hand.

On return their personal step size is measured and their journey visualised. I have made a quick video from last years Psychogeophysics event where I built the first prototype. http://softhook.com/drawing.mov

The red dots are places where the walker turned sharply, indicating corners and moments of encounter with the world. From previous experience with the Bio Mapping project, these corner points are attention points that anchor people's memory of a walk. The idea of the workshops is that multiple personal journeys can be overlaid. A partial map of the city will slowly emerge, distorted by the uniqueness of people's body and step sizes and their idiosyncrasies of walking. The animations that result from their journeys can be projected during the workshop.

Christian Nold, 2011

Documentation from building the prototypes and then the Psychogeophysics walk where we go hunt for aliens and get into the airbase:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/74h2ly6wzsyhw6w

View the films fullscreen