Net Art Review

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I have chosen to review the work Geo Goo (2008) by JODI, an art project by two net artists: Joan Heemskert and Dirk Paesmans. JODI would often create internet games, installations and websites, further exploring by deconstructing video games, software, and websites. Geo Goo was apart of the net art movement, it was taking advantage of Google Earth interface by manipulating Google Maps. Iconic symbols are used to create recognisable shapes and odd patterns, some are also scattered randomly.

Geo explores Google Maps using red lines, using x coordinates (a horizontal red line) and y coordinates (vertical red line); "x" passes through the Equator, and "y" passes through the Prime Meridian.

Goo places Google Map icons to create shapes, such as spirals, circles, diamonds, and others. This selection picks out multiple specific locations and uses place-markers or other icons to map out a shape or pattern.


Geo Goo has many more selections besides the examples shown here.

Also, using Google developer tools, I was able to inspect the code written for one of the pages:
The code itself isn't too intimidating, I suppose this is because of Googles basic HTML layout, but it is still difficult for me personally to decipher. From the code inspector implemented within Google Chrome, I could also point-out that Geo Goo is functioning using plain HTML. There are many more drop-downs that dive deeper into the code. From the code in the screenshot, I personally translate the code to be assigning div tags identifications, making them easier to call back to directly in an external CSS sheet, in-line styling has also been added to give both id's unique properties (example: <div id="mapa"> == $0</div>).

My reasons for liking this net art piece, is shapes; utilising shapes or patterns by manipulating their properties or arrangement is what I enjoy about art. The simplest forms of shapes, or the placement of iconic shapes can be used to create a completely different shape, or even a work of art. It is also enjoyable to watch how fast icons/shapes are placed on a map that details specific locations, with each place-marker positioned with precision. However, I did notice some place-markers out of line with the completion of a spiralling shape, which could have been a possible error.

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