POINT 59
In July 1999, Irina Danilova with support of Arts Link CEC Partners went from New York to the only intersection of 59th Longitude and 59th latitude on land, in the Siberian woods of Ural mountains (3 other intersections sunk in the ocean). After about 10 hours of driving from the city of Perm on unpaved and flooded roads and camping overnight, Irina and a local guide Alexander Kuznetsov went (unarmed) about 6 km into the wild woods with an early GPS device “Magellan” that could not show any location while moving and had to be manually connected to satellites. While figuring out the directions, it took about 6 hours to get to the point 59x59, and about 5 hours to run out of the woods. After arriving at the point 59x59 and building an installation-mark, Irina and Alexander were trapped by heavy rain and thunderstorms, when not only Magellan but even regular compass stopped showing the correct direction.
Due to the dangerous and rough environment and heavy rain the previous trip had minimal documentation. Here we propose a project, dedicated to that trip, designed to fulfill all the missing parts by placing at the intersections of 59th latitudes and 59th longitudes permanent multimedia stations, one in the woods on the land in Urals and 3 other on buoys in the oceans. Each station will be activated every 59 minutes, by lighting up and announcing the location, for example, “Latitude: 59 South, Longitude: 59 East”, and taking video/photo documentation for the following 59 seconds. In the memory of the storm in the wild woods of Siberia in 1999, each station will also report local weather conditions. All the data collected by multimedia stations will be available online.
This world global installation is part of a larger Project 59, founded by Irina Danilova in 1995, where a random number is used as a tool for artistic explorations. Since 2002 Irina Danilova has collaborated with Hiram Levy.
hiramandirina
POINT 59
In July 1999, Irina Danilova with support of Arts Link CEC Partners went from New York to the only intersection of 59th Longitude and 59th latitude on land, in the Siberian woods of Ural mountains (3 other intersections sunk in the ocean). After about 10 hours of driving from the city of Perm on unpaved and flooded roads and camping overnight, Irina and a local guide Alexander Kuznetsov went (unarmed) about 6 km into the wild woods with an early GPS device “Magellan” that could not show any location while moving and had to be manually connected to satellites. While figuring out the directions, it took about 6 hours to get to the point 59x59, and about 5 hours to run out of the woods. After arriving at the point 59x59 and building an installation-mark, Irina and Alexander were trapped by heavy rain and thunderstorms, when not only Magellan but even regular compass stopped showing the correct direction.
Due to the dangerous and rough environment and heavy rain the previous trip had minimal documentation. Here we propose a project, dedicated to that trip, designed to fulfill all the missing parts by placing at the intersections of 59th latitudes and 59th longitudes permanent multimedia stations, one in the woods on the land in Urals and 3 other on buoys in the oceans. Each station will be activated every 59 minutes, by lighting up and announcing the location, for example, “Latitude: 59 South, Longitude: 59 East”, and taking video/photo documentation for the following 59 seconds. In the memory of the storm in the wild woods of Siberia in 1999, each station will also report local weather conditions. All the data collected by multimedia stations will be available online.
This world global installation is part of a larger Project 59, founded by Irina Danilova in 1995, where a random number is used as a tool for artistic explorations. Since 2002 Irina Danilova has collaborated with Hiram Levy.
hiramandirina