I was working in Amsterdam recently and managed to 'engineer' a day off. I had made a large list of galleries and shops I wanted to explore so I used my small portable device to aid me but as I've been ranting on for a while, I don't like maps on hand held equipment very much. Anyway, I got predictably annoyed with it and then I got lost and then everything improved.
I hadn't been to Amsterdam in about 5 years (when I curated an art exhibition there), so I only really knew the area around 9 streets where the gallery was and I had been located during my previous trip.After 10 minutes of being lost and making random turns (based on intrigue) I found myself outside the gallery (where I had worked, now a shop). It was a little odd. It was as if my inner autopilot was guiding me to familiar territory. My sense of direction is awful so this was slightly refreshing.
I've been interested in the idea of Ambient Wayfinding for a while and I'm not sure if this counts but this is exactly how I want it to feel; drifting through a city and ending up where you want to be as if by magic. I think to get to this point digitally we're gonna need a whole lot more interoperable systems, and maybe a fairly healthy mesh network. But you know, a guy can dream.
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