Homing Devices for Unhomely Times

Myers, Misha (2006) Homing Devices for Unhomely Times. Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 14 (3). ISSN 1071 - 4391

Abstract / Summary

The ‘Locative Media’ special issue of LEA set out to define the emergent field of locative media and to provide curriculum and a bibliographic index as valuable resources developed by international experts for art, science and technology communities. The research imperatives of Myers’ article are to explore and define the potential for locative media to construct new conceptions of home as spaces of resistance, interference and enunciation, in opposition to those augmentations of surveillance and control such media also often entail/enable. These potentialities are considered in relation to the artwork ‘way from home’, an interactive and socially engaged digital work, and are contextualised with other contemporary digital works utilising different forms of locative media. The uniquely localized situation of this project offered an opportunity for critical consideration of locative media in relation to wider contexts of forced migration and its politics and ethics. This article develops the notion of ‘homing’ that emerged in the conclusion of the ‘Art in the Age of Terrorism’ chapter. It also defines the methods used in ‘way from home’ as ‘homing devices’, and considers how the performative mechanisms deployed in ‘way from home’ create place, above all places of belonging.

Myers’s contribution to the special issue seeks to provide a plurality and broadening of understandings of the field of locative media, which has developed out of mapping and cartography, and intersects with site-specific art practices and its broader social implications/applications.

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