The MILKproject explores GPS visualizations as a storytelling tool. The project followed one of the dairy transportation (cheese) lines from Latvia to the Netherlands from the udder of the cow to the mouth of the consumer. All the people involved in this transportation—from farmer to consumer—were given a GPS device for a day.

Afterwards, using software specially developed for the project, the data was displayed in the form of graphic drawings on contingent geographical maps of the areas the project was based in. These drawings were later projected and discussed with the participants in small, informal workshop situations in their homes.

During these workshops, their comments on the GPS tracks and their conveyed meaning were sound-recorded and photos of these social situations taken. Later, based on the communication between the artists and the participants, additional photos and sound recordings based on the participants’ daily lives and routines were also taken. All this data, the GPS tracks, sound and images, was edited for each participant for both the installation set-up and the project website. The edited stills with the corresponding soundtracks are experienced in the installation as a narrative and are played in “cartographic” order from east to west, thus following the path of the milk.

The MILKproject was launched as a small-scale workshop in the summer of 2003 during the “locative media” symposium (organized by RIXC), involving GPS technologies and two Latvian dairy farmers in a small village in south-east Latvia. During 2004 the project was developed as a cross-disciplinary research undertaking both in Latvia and in the Netherlands, involving 9 participants (4 Latvian farmers and 5 Dutch city-dwellers), as well as the whole trade network between them. The MILKproject is a collaboration between Ieva Auzina, Esther Polak and RIXC—Riga Center for New Media Culture. Currently the project is displayed as a multimedia installation and as a database on-line, available in three languages: http://milkproject.net

The MILKproject has been supported by:
Mondriaan Foundation; Digitale Pioniers; European Cultural Foundation; ZKM—Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe; Culture 2000; Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality; Royal Netherlands Embassy, Riga; KKF, Kulturkapitala Fonds; KfHein Foundation, Utrecht

Ieva Auzina (LV), born 1975, has a background in art history. Since 1998 she has been working together with e-lab (electronic arts center in Riga) and since 2000 at RIXC (Riga Center for New Media Culture) as a curator and project coordinator. As a freelance curator she has organized various projects in contemporary art, new media and cross-disciplinary culture.

Esther Polak (NL), born 1962, is a visual artist who studied graphic art and mixed media in Amsterdam. She has carried out personal projects using GPS and organizes special lessons to train participants to “see more of the world”. Besides her activities as an artist Esther Polak writes for a variety of magazines.