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Using Google Earth, artist creates ‘a meditation on what home is’

During the documentary film iteration of her virtual performance piece “You Are Here,” immersive artist Marike Splint refers to the 57-minute experience as “a road performance with Google Earth as my vehicle.” Utilizing that satellite-imagery platform, Splint guides viewers to and through significant places in her life while encouraging them to do the same with their own.

“It’s a meditation on what home is,” Splint said in a recent phone interview from Los Angeles. “What is that space for us right now, but also what other places constitute home for you? I hope it brings people back into their bodies in a spatial way.”

“You Are Here: A Homebound Travelogue” is an extension of the interactive production Splint hosted earlier this year, part of La Jolla Playhouse’s Digital “Without Walls (WOW)” programming.

“Everyone is trying to explore how to reach an audience where we can be together in the same space. For me,” Splint recalled. “It was very important to have a live element in the exploration of the work.”

“At the same time, La Jolla Playhouse said it would be nice if at some point we could release it to a wider audience and see how many people we could reach with the film version.”

The pay-what-you-wish film combines Splint’s Google Earth-driven travelogue with her thoughtful commentary about space, place and time. Zoom participants filmed during an August performance of “You Are Here” are seen in their personal squares and are sometimes called upon to interact, but the arc of this journey is completely in Splint’s hands.

Perhaps the most intriguing point “You Are Here: A Homebound Travelogue” makes is that the satellite platform is empowering in how it allows us to see the world at this isolated time in history while at the same time a bit troubling in its power to do so without being detected. “With every nostalgic click,” Splint says during the film, “I keep the all-seeing-eye alive.” lajollaplayhouse.org