The ‘Urban Cursor‘ project by Danish designer Sebastian Campion uses GPS tracking to record the movements of a giant 3D computer cursor. The project was created for the Festival Ingràvid in Figueres, Spain.
The giant cursor was installed in a city square allowing visitors to move it around on its large castors. The object was embedded with GPS device that transmitted its movements so that its location could be tracked using Google Maps. Users were encouraged to move the object around and use it to sit on or play with. Later, these same visitors could check the website to see how they moved the cursor. The aim of the piece was ‘to facilitate social interaction and play in public space.’
This was a fantastic experiment, and really showed how much people love interaction and its representation in the online space. By mixing the offline real world and the online sphere, we allowed people to interact in a different way to the ones they were used to. This opens great potential, as broadband, GPS and social networking are all portable as of now, and furthering this idea to the point of a giant cursor seemed like an experiment in social interaction with the internet in a realm that we would consider unconventional. Judging by all the locations it found itself in, people seemed to enjoy the experience.
