MAN MANIPULATES MAPS, CREATES VIRTUAL TRAFFIC JAMS

Simon Wreckert, Berlin-based artist, walked the streets carrying a red wagon with 99 smartphones. Wherever he went, Google Maps showed a congested traffic jam. Google Maps showed a thick red line indicating congestion on the road, when there was no traffic at all. All the 99 phones had Google Maps running, giving an illusion that the roads were jam-packed.

Stating that showing how data can be hacked and manipulated is like pointing out the emperor has no clothes, he said maps are an instrument of power. They substitute political and military power in a way that represents the state borders between territories and they can repeat, legitimate, and construct the differences of classes and social self-understandings, he added. Wreckert was quoted as saying by

Motherboard that by moving the smartphones in the street he was able to generate virtual traffic which will navigate cars on another route.

Wreckert rented 99 smartphones, all of them Android devices, and purchased 99 sim cards online. He would spend an hour or two on each spot, walking back and forth on the street to generate a traffic jam. Quoting semanticist Alfred Korzybski, Wreckert said, “The map is not the territory but another version of reality.” Data is always translated to what they might be presented. The images, lists, graphs, and maps that represent those data are all interpretations, and there is no such thing as neutral data. Data is always collected for a specific purpose, by a combination of people, technology, money, commerce, and government, he explained.