itinerant

At the prompt of Noah Wardrip-Fruin's visit to Naomi Spellman's class at the University of California, San Diego, I ordered his book Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media. Although I'm not a big gamer, the emphasis on play and analysis of the virtual / actual overlap attracted my attention. Since Noah teaches at UCSD's School of Communications, local favorite thinkers / artists—like Lev Manovich and Adriene Jenik—are in the book..as they should be. Having just dipped into the book, I've only read Teri Rueb's description of her artwork Itinerant involving a small pocket PC with GPS and headphones. As a participant moves to a specific section of the city, their new location, tracked by GPS, triggers the playback of sounds that have been "placed" in that area. Excerpts from Mary Shelly's Frankenstein and Rueb's text about an uncle (I think fictional) who wanders the world with restlessness and is ostracized by their family.

Teri Rueb is one a handful of artists doing great work with GPS systems. The incorporation of this technology in stories about Female Expats navigating the globe make sense. More about Teri's work is at terirueb.net.