Virtually Nao in The Skinny

ECA Degree Show 2011

by Rosamund West, Thu 23 Jun 2011
Perusing the offerings of tomorrow’s art stars is always overwhelming. We make our annual pilgrimage to the Central Belt degree shows, hoping to emerge with some senses intact.

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Virtually Nao in The Scotsman

Edinburgh College of Art Degree Show 2011

Edinburgh College of Art

ON 1 AUGUST Edinburgh College of Art will cease to exist as an independent entity as it merges with Edinburgh University. It is the end of 250 years of independent art teaching. The two institutions have enjoyed a close relationship for much of that time but, if a merger implies the joining of equals, this is more like a takeover.

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Sneak Peak 2

Just to keep the suspense up a little longer I’m not going to show you the finished exhibition space until the opening, but here are a few photographs of the install for you to catch a glimpse. For those who can’t attend the exhibition I will be posting a 360 degrees interactive image (like the kind of thing you would see on Google Street View) for your enjoyment, particularly for the volunteers who made this all possible.

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Sneak Peak

Here’s a basic mock up of the exhibition space for the project, a little sneak peak for you! As you can see, there are a couple of prints of the Nao Victoria on the wall, the computer for viewing the website for full information on the project, as well as a wall mural showing the original path of the Nao Victoria, the route by commercial flight, and the flow of Internet data (the results of our exciting experiment, thanks to the global volunteers).

Of course there will be one or two more surprises for the actual exhibition, so if you’re in Edinburgh between the 11th – 19th of June do come along to the degree show at Edinburgh College of Art, where you can see this year’s recent graduates. I’ll be there to answer all your questions, and of course the prints are also for sale. I’m sharing an exhibition space with a talented artist and close friend of mine, Carrie Duce, in room E7. We’d be delighted to see you there.

Latest News

Below is the progress of our attempt to digitally circumnavigate the globe, following the path originally taken by the Nao Victoria between 1519 and 1522.

Virtually Nao has successfully digitally circumnavigated the world!

The journey took a total of 9.353 seconds to travel by Internet.
The project took 74 days to acquire the data from volunteers across the globe. That’s 6 393 600 seconds.
The project had help from 12 volunteers.
The volunteers were from 10 different locations, 7 different countries and 5 different continents.
The flow of Internet data crossed all of the continents except for Antarctica. It travelled through 21 different countries, stopping in 35 different locations, often revisiting the same location more than once.

Thank you to all of the volunteers who made this project possible.

To view an interactive map of the flow of Internet data, click here.
To see the ‘crew’ behind the Virtually Nao project, click here.

The Faces Behind Virtually Nao

Here are the faces behind the digital facade that is Virtually Nao

Rosamund Garrett, artist (website author)
Edinburgh/Kent, UK

Virtually Nao is my final year degree show project. I’m currently studying for a five year undergraduate MA in Fine Art at the University of Edinburgh. Half of my degree is in history of art, where I specialised in sixteenth century tapestry at the university. The rest of my time I spend making contemporary art at Edinburgh College of Art, working at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, and undertaking research for the Turner Contemporary in Margate.

The idea for Virtually Nao evolved out of an existing project and I would also say through the very nature of my degree. I must frequently switch my mind between history and forward thinking contemporary art, and as such it is no surprise that this has influenced my work. But as is the nature of art the idea first occurred rather unglamorously whilst I was eating a bowl of noodles with Jon in the Glasgow Wagamama. With Jon’s technical backup I realised that my ideas were not impossible, and quickly became so enthusiastic that I drew everything all over the Wagamama paper place matt.

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Virtually Nao Appears in the Canarian Weekly

Below you can see the article written for the Canarian Weekly by the editor Ruth Summers, who also happens to be one of our volunteers. You can visit the website of the Canarian Weekly by clicking here.

Virtually Nao Appears in The Student

Virtually Nao also appeared in The Student, Edinburgh University’s student newspaper in March in the culture section. To visit The Student’s website click here.