Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum

"Lake Drawing Wind"

Video

We released five helium balloons from a rowing boat during our performance to float in the wind over the lake. A lightweight GPS logger was attached to each balloon. Custom software visualized the collected GPS tracks in Google Earth from the viewpoints of the balloons. Resulting in 5 films, each with a different colored balloon as the protagonist. The balloons leave traces in the air, like footsteps, or rather wind steps, as they reveal the history of the wind currents. The work allows the audience to identify with each balloon. The work was the first exploration of actual time visualization based on location data.

Videos: https://www.polakvanbekkum.com/works/video/lake-drawing-wind/