Jeremy Wood uses GPS to create artistic works.

The company

Jeremy Wood is an artist and mapmaker whose work is an expression of the poetry and politics of space. He created the one-man company GPS drawing in 2000, based in Oxford, UK.

Jeremy Wood exhibits internationally and conducts GPS drawing and mapping lectures and workshops in schools, universities, museums and galleries.

The challenge

Jeremy Wood wanted to investigate the expressive qualities of digitally tracings his daily movements and to create an original approach to the reading and writing of places.

One of his artistic challenges is to negotiate the complexity of public spaces on which he draws, and to bind arts and sciences by using both drawing and technology to produce a personal cartography.

Therefore, Jeremy needed a technology able to reveal ones’ tracks to introduce new approaches to travel, navigation and local awareness.

The satellite solution

Jeremy Wood started to explore the potential of satellite navigation for digital mark-making on water, over land and in the air. Equipped with a GPS receiver, the artist – sometimes together with people attending his workshops- explores open spaces, cities, parks, roads or footpaths. Geographical coordinates of the artist are recorded over a period of time. The points are then joined along a line of movement, creating a dot-to-dot drawing. The outcomes depend on the available space and time as the more notable results usually appear after a bit of experimentation.

The result

Drawing with satellite navigation challenges our perceptions of scale and orientation, by travelling as a geodetic pencil. It engages the artist in an act of map-making that involves a physical exploration of the environment.

Through teaching workshops at schools, universities and museums, Jeremy Woods gets the opportunity to engage with unfamiliar places where he would not have been invited to. Sharing his work and seeing others draw and map with satellite navigation in unique ways encourages him to keep moving.

Jeremy Wood’s work is exhibited internationally and is part of the permanent collection of the London Transport Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum, and the University of the Arts in London.

” GPS drawing engages a range of creative applications and challenges perceptions of scale by travelling as a geodetic pencil “ Jeremy Wood.