I selected five routes in Kyoto city, intentionally adopted “subjective” and “inaccurate” methods to compute their distances, and presented my results with written report, recorded photos, and drawled maps.
Five routes included “Katsura Station to Kyoto City University of Arts,” “To-ji Temple to Saiji Temple Ruins,” “Botanical Garden to City Zoo,” “Kyoto Gyoen (one circle),” “Ichijo to kujo,” and “Senbon-dori Street (one way along).” Their distances were counted by the following vague units: my one-step, words forgotten, Pocky biscuits eaten, number of words typed, and wrinkles in white paper.
When you type in your startting point and destination, the function of route planning in Google Maps automatically suggests some routes and estimates arrival time for you. I experienced two kinds of disparities when I use that function: a disprity between my understood distance estimated by Google Maps and my physically experienced distance, and a disparity between the true distance and the distance estimated by Google Maps. Therefore, I created this work.
When using Google Maps, we often think that we have understood the distance of a certain route. After actually walking through, we discovered that there must be some errors in the information. To integrate the information stored in the brain and the infornation experienced through the body is an incredible experience. I guess that frequent use of Google Maps to understand distance will change our experience of the latter.
Besides, the distance information indicated by Google Maps is collected and analyzed from large amount of data, and is provided to unspecified (possibly non-existent) audiences. It should be “objective” and “accurate” for every person but actually produces some errors.
Concepts such as “error,” “accuracy,” “objectivity,” and “subjectivity” are deeply related with scientific thinking. People have applied “scientific methods” to management, production, and efficient problem-solving for a long time. Due to the development of information technology, management of people becomes easier and science of analyzing people’s behavior and emotion becomes mature. I find that people gradually forget to apply thinking methods other than “science” to understand themselves and others. Is it an ignorance of human complexity? I believe that “accuracy” or “objectivity” is frequently mistaken for “truth” or “reality.”
I wanted to take back my own sensibility from the international information company. I decided “what I feel is the reality.” This work was a small resistance to the human condition that we are defined and be put into a framed and simplified world.
