Geocaching Memory Bugs
I’ve already released USB memory sticks loose into the wild – as it were. I called those BlogCrossing. Each BlogCrossing is a self-contained WordPress blog (like this one) and the idea is that each person that has the memory stick in their possession should make some sort of contribution, in the form of a blog post.
Geocaching with Caiti and Demelza. We found this Knight travel bug just by the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, I took him to Manchester.
I saw it as the inverse of blogging, rather than being written by an individual and available to the masses this blog is written by many people but can only be read by a single person at one time.
Recently I’ve become more and more enamored with geocaching – via geocaching.com – and I thought combining the traveling memory stick concept with geocaching would work great. For those who don’t know, geocaching is (according to the ever-present Wikipedia):
Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called “geocaches” or “caches”) anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and “treasure,” usually toys or trinkets of little value.
Geocaching websites offer things called Travel Bugs. These are generally metal dog-tags that you can purchase for a small fee. Each one has a unique identification number on it and they can be attached to anything you like. These items can be tracked via geocaching.com.
So the idea is that people take my USB memory sticks from place to place and contribute items of digital media along the way. In the long-run I will create online (and maybe offline) exhibitions of the generated content.
In the short term, I’ve created my own geocaches as starting places for the memory sticks. The memory sticks themselves will be taken away, but the geocaches will remain.
Links to the relevant pages on geocaching.com:
In due course I’ll post any further info about the geocache’d memory sticks here.
Hey Joe! I’ve been having a look and… is your memory bug still placed at the cementiri de la pesta groga? that’s badalona, my city! Tell me if you need me to do anything. Lots of love, Susi. (Why are your things following me?)
[...] ‘muggled’ (geocaching terminology) and stolen. A pain in the arse. However my ‘memory bugs‘ are going strong, at least the ones that I’ve distributed using the geocaching [...]