The LA Swimmer – 43123 Pools I Have Not Visited and Never Will

2013 Jun

Idea & Concept

Benedikt Groß & Joey Lee

Programming

Sures Kumar & Benedikt Groß

Pool Route Calculation

Stefan Landsbek

Footage

Google Street View API

Hyperlapse Library

Hyperlapse.js

Imagine swimming across Los Angeles as if pool-by-pool they form a river through the city; 43123 oases stitched together in a desert of hyper-urban reality. You float unabashed down your unmapped highway of water, but are confronted very quickly by the fact that you are not welcome in this realm of kidney and clover bowls, Olympic-sized parallelograms, and hot tubs. Threatened by an unforgiving obstacle course of disgruntled homeowners and an impending court order you continue from pool to pool, your reconciliation awaiting you in the next chlorinated ecosystem.

The LA Swimmer is based on the dataset of “The Big Atlas of LA Pools” and inspired by Frank Perry’s 1963 film, “The Swimmer”. We imagined that through the LA Swimmer, we might be able to make an allusion to the vision of a “river of pools”. However instead of a journey of self-discovery, we rather invite you to leap-frog from pool-to-pool and to see LA through the Google Car’s perfectly tall street view camera.

The LA Swimmer Route

Stills

Talk

Reading and Writing Landscape @ Chaos Computer Club Easterhegg 2014

2014–4

Speaker, “Reading and Writing Landscape”, Chaos Computer Club Easterhegg 2014, Stuttgart, DE

Talk

Reading and Writing Landscape @ The World 2.0, CPH:DOX, Copenhagen

2013–11

Speaker, “Reading and Writing Landscape”, The World 2.0 – Do It Together, CPH:DOX, Copenhagen, DK