PDPal

PDPal is an art-technology project that used a Palm PDA (personal digital assistant) application to create a “map” of personal-digital experience based on a set of emotive coordinates — Social, Preposition, Texture, Speed and Weather. Based on how your experience was charted along these axes, your map was delivered. The “map” was a kind of pictogram of the intersection of these coordinates.

Leader: Julian Bleecker
Years: 2001-2004
Method: Prototyping

PDPal combines a number of concepts in an effort to create a disruptive designed object. The “theoretical concepts center largely on maps and map-making. PDPal attempts to create a different kind of map — one whose coordinates are based on these personal/emotional coordinates, rather than the conventional latitude/longitude or street address coordinates.

In three editions, PDPal was exhibited at:

• Eyebeam Atelier, NYC “Beta Launch” show and artists’ residency 2002
• Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 2003
• Transmediale Festival, Berlin 2003
• University of Minnesota Design Institute, “Twin Cities Knowledge Maps” 2003
• Times Square, NYC “Creative Time Presents” 2003-2004
• Whitney Museum of American Art, Artport 2003
• Walter Phillips Gallery, The Banff Centre, Alberta Canada “Database Imaginary”.2004

Denis Wood was commissioned to write a short essay inspired by PDPal.