Whether it's real or not, doesn't anybody else think it kind of resembles that greek(roman?)god Atlas holding the world on his shoulders? It's fake, but the concept of it is extremely cool!

Scrubadub

Amazing

yashichi8bit

@shenanigans61: you're also welcome, but i'm not a marine. i'm in the united states army. infantry is infantry, just wear a different branch on my uniform.

looney82

They ruined this video by making it so long and boring. Couldn't they have found cooler music?

MichelleMMM

All I know, is that tere is only a small hill in Cartagena, and I don't remember a tram either. So the images that are supposed to be from Cartagena are from somewhere else.

berbar

@looney82: I also thank you for your service. I recognize you're a Marine; so is my buddy. He paid off bunker duty this weekend to come home from NC. He deploys on the USS(?) Iwo Jima in August for his tour in August. 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment Weapons Company Combined Anti-Armor team 1, 2nd Marine Division. Proud as hell of that guy, as well as my grandpa who served a few years in the Navy during WWII, my other grandpa's friend in the Korean war, and a couple people I know who served in other various wars.
Semper Fi.

shenanigans61

@GadgetPlay:you're very welcome for my service. i'm proud to be on my second deployment to iraq, and to do my job everyday. by the way, you're my first "friend" since i created my account on gizmodo. for whatever that's worth....

looney82

@fluxlasers: "This vain twat is just a Matthew Barney wannabe - a rip off of Barney's Drawing Restraint concept."

Huh?? The only thing this has to do with Matthew Barney is maybe the dude was listening to Bjork while he was sketching this out.

frigg

@roflwaffles -- less energy than an elevator? Are you kidding? I don't care if it was an ultra light.. flying around the world multiple times, through hostile countries, an flying hundreds of miles out to see to make a loop is just ridiculous, AND a waste of energy. I'm a big proponent of art, but if some celebrity had done this, we'd all be talking about how much of a energy waster they are and how much carbon they produced. And quiet frankly, it's really not some amazing piece of art, it's a crappy line drawing on a map... I think I saw an elephant do that once at the zoo...

chris300zx

55 days of battery life?? Why does my TomTom last 45 minutes on a full charge?

broho

What did he pick up in Columbia??

nincompoop

@looney82: Thank you for your service.

GadgetPlay

Have you ever tried getting a GPS signal in an airplane? It's impossibe unless you hold the GPS right up to the window. However, most DHL planes that I've sen DONT HAVE WINDOWS! (except in the cockpit). The skin of the airplane makes an extremely effective RF shield.

KyleVibius

well the hair is absolutely crazy as there is no DHL presence in Norway anywhere within 1000's of miles of the lines. Also doesn't DHL mostly use big planes, not small aircrafts buzzing around all kind of small islands with 500 inhabitants in the middle of the arctic? Anyways, to do "art" like this when you can just fake it is just plain stupid. Time consuming and not very enviromentally..

krisve

#1 Awesome concept.
#2 It looks real enough to me.
#3 Waste of resources bah humbug. It's art.

Mongoose

@Redbeard, that point in the S. Atltantic is Natal, off the coast of Brazil.

And to the rest of the doubters, nothing says that the GPS tracklog was recorded in one single trip lasting 55 days. The artist could have arranged for the GPS to have been turned off for sections of trips that didn't fit with his drawing. So in fact it likely took many trips to collect all of the data. Then too, he could have just chopped out the pieces of the tracklog that didn't fit his drawing. Lastly, some of the smaller loops could have been recorded by ground vehicles, like that motorbike turning around in Slovakia.

Most of the nay-sayers are probably secretly thinking "damn, I wish I'd thought of that first"!

midtoad

@electrikecho: Funniest comment on here -thanks for the laugh!

mr_schticker

@fluxlasers:you're wrong about iraq. i've been all over iraq, from baghdad to the syrian border, all the way over to the iranian border. every american base (FOB) that i've been to has a little DHL building. plus you see DHL stickers on a lot of boxes that us grunts get to make us happy and forget that it's 110 degrees outside. i still call BS on it, but just wanted to correct that.

looney82

Haha, they used the incorrect "its" in the video.

wiithan

holy shit...it's jesus!

rg

i just don't belive this....there's too many loops that don't make sense...like the one off the coast of south america...the double loop in the middle of the atlandtic the loops off the coast of madagascar and the crazy winding path that goes from around iceland to off the NW coast of africa....i call bullshit at well =/

RedBeard

I can take a picture of a map, and draw lines on it, too...then I'll make a video, and some figures, and say I mapped a GPS-loaded briefcase's path.

shenanigans61

@Kevin: My thoughts exactly.
I call shenanigans.

shenanigans61

well, it got u guys commenting a lot on it. perhaps it's art after all?

001

FAKE - Check out how the lines that go off the sides don't match up. This image is a drawing he did on a map of the world and was not produced using GPS data.

This vain twat is just a Matthew Barney wannabe - a rip off of Barney's Drawing Restraint concept.

Also, I don't think DHL would fly/drive a case around Iraq to do the nose.

fluxlasers

@scuba_steve: It's not pessimism. It's called seeing the holes in soft systems. NYC has some of the poorest systems around - things like crowded narrow subway platforms, confusing corridor layouts, and floor-to-ceiling turnstiles. Set off a nailbomb in rush hour; most of the casualties will be from the panic. If you're real good, hit 10 stations all at the same time.

Or maybe a backpack or three loaded with schrapnel at any of Manhattan's supercrowded stores and/or tourist sites. Or, with summer coming up, pour some toxins in the city's fountains - a favorite for kids and pets.

Let's also not forget all the havoc that can be wrought by spraying nastiness on the local buffet or slipped onto the produce at the farmer's market.

Like I said earlier, lots of the larger buildings have posts set into the sidewalk to prevent truck-bombs; sending a bomb through the mail (or by bike messenger) - well, I hope that DHL and FedEx rely on more than the statement on the airbill that the package does not contain hazardous materials.

OMG! Ponies!

psssh.
this was epic.
a couple points i would like to make.
when traveling on a ocean, its quite possible to go from island to island, especially if by plane.
looks like it was just one or two people traveling by small prop plane and car.
not that much resources wasted here, 2 months of travel.
it probably used less energy than the average person uses riding elevators.

roflwaffles

Turns out there wasn't a GPS in the suitcase afterall.

Just a gnome.

Windhawk

Its far easier to just draw on a map and say you did it. Like I can photoshop myself on top of a mountain and say I climbed it. It has about the same impact as this little art project.

thechansen

"Mr Bush, Mr Brown... um... we're out of oil."

Collins1

@shinchan: There is a place called Bangko, not BangkoK (like you, I initially thought it was a horrendous typological + geographical error), but I think it's in Indonesia. (see Google Maps)

Which only makes it a horrendous geographical error...note to self, don't use DHL to mail stuff home.
----------------
On the art/environmentalism/pretentiousness argument, IMHO it's fake. They did say it's for an ad campaign.

Xenobiologista

That's pretty awesome, but why isn't it Rick Astley?

videoCWK

@OMG! Ponies!: Well, aren't you Mr 'glass is half empty'... Shouldn't you be glad that DHL don't think that every parcel with electronics in it has to be a bomb? (I'm pretty sure that 'explosives' are more specific to bombs than 'electronics' anyway)

scuba_steve

Wow, I can't believe all the haters in this thread. I thought it was kind of cool, a little vain, but still cool. I'm with Windhawk, Mad props to you buddy.
@nuclearlove:I'm sure DHL doesn't normally make GPS coordinate deliveries, but they co-sponsored the project, so I'm guessing they made an exception in this case.

graffiksguru

It's a sweet idea, but I don't buy it either. I downloaded the PDF of all of the directions supposedly given to DHL, from the dude's web site. It has a bunch of GPS coordinates on it instead of cities. How do you tell DHL to deliver a package to a GPS coordinate in the middle of the f'in ocean?

If somebody knows, please tell me, as I've suddenly got a few "art project" ideas of my own for such a use.

nuclearlove

Really cool concept! I really cant see the reason to act oh so enviormental all of a sudden...

Comon.. most of u guys, who bash the artist for leaving some sort of imaginary footprints on yer precious air, are wasteful yourself and don't give two craps about the enviorment. Admit it! :P ADMIT IT!!!! :D

DarkPuppy

@nonbreakingspace: no. forums are an excuse to be a dick. like you :) its art, dude. he didnt plug your mom. thats your job

hellboy997

Is it just me, or does that look a little like Jesus? And I don't mean Addy's hubby.

frndlybnny

@djdare: Sweet! Urine artist!

GadgetPlay

@GadgetPlay: will do, i'll make it 2 for you, and 2 for OMG and 2 for every other post in this thread, then i will draw my likeness in the sand with my urine. That way I won't feel like Heineken wasted precious resources just so i could get sloshed and have a good time with my friends.

djdare

@nonbreakingspace: If you don't change your ways soon, you'll be filtered out by society. Art is making a comeback and in forms unseen before. If you don't catch up and make an effort in creativity, you'll be swept up with the dust of history. The countdown is ticking with your current/future job on the line.

AlanIn4D

@nonbreakingspace:

Art sucks these days, just an excuse to be a pretentious dick.

It's all subjective I suppose, but just ask yourself: Which is worse, the pretentious art prick, or the people that enable him?

Kaiser-Machead

Nah, this is a load of crap? How did he get the plane / boat to do donuts in the middle of the ocean.

Art sucks these days, just an excuse to be a pretentious dick.

nonbreakingspace

I can one-up that: I launched a probe into space to slingshot around the planets. Its trajectory managed to draw the word "bullshit".

It was done using very eccentric orbits, and a lot of wasted hydrazine. And I stamped FedEx on it.

electrikecho

@djdare: "I'm having a bonfire tonight with my friends"

You bastard! Have a cold one for me.

@scarbrtj: "But on an actual globe, versus a Mercator projection, I bet the image looks quite different."

Kind of like when someone with a big belly tattoo gets really, really fat.

GadgetPlay

@OMG! Ponies!: "I like art but not when it inordinately wastes resources."

Did it say that the briefcase was ever the only package on a delivery run? Even if it was, art is always a waste of resources, even if (but not always) just a little bit, but we love it anyway.

"Also, I'm not thrilled knowing that activated electronic devices can just be delivered willy-nilly through carriers like DHL"

I don't mean to pick on you, but it specifically said this was done in conjunction with and the sponsorship of DHL.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why is everybody so negative? Of course there had to be a little cheating to get all of those lines so nice, but with the cooperation of DHL, the package undoubtedly got some special treatment (like never being in the hold of a ship or the back of a truck). It was a neat idea, cost virtually nothing, and was in no way to blame for the imminent destruction of the planet that's not happening anyway.

GadgetPlay

This guy is so full of himself. Ain't nobody wanna see his ass all over the world...

itscarmennnn

A planetary-scale Etch-a-Sketch. Very cool. But on an actual globe, versus a Mercator projection, I bet the image looks quite different. Each artist gets to choose his or her own canvas tho'.

scarbrtj

@OMG! Ponies!: I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where they built trains, and boats, and lorries specifically to carry this package/dude, every shot I saw involved a delivery person with packages to deliver. I'm having a bonfire tonight with my friends too. How bout them carbon footprint apples.

djdare

@looney82: Friend, I'm guessing that you have a lot of those kinds of days. We'll do our best to keep you happy.

Stay safe and come home in one piece.

OMG! Ponies!

@Hiphopopotamus: Heh - and he originally only intended to send it across town!

The phrase "slow boat to China" comes to mind...

FredicvsMaximvs

So far I'm seeing a bunch of good reasons to call it fake, and not many that convience me to believe it. So I think I'm gonna have to bet my $5 on "fake."

However, I'm with Josh_Geyer - cool idea, whether it's fake or not. And it it's done using established routes (which I have a hard time believing this one did) then even better.

FredicvsMaximvs

What an environmentally irresponsible way to sell out for a corporate shipping company in the name of "art."

justinsane

@IphtashuFitz: It appears he had a handheld unit, which I'm guessing would help fill in the empty spots.

@OMG! Ponies!: Yeah, a sealed box with wired together batteries and a big switch. More like a bomb than a lite brite stuck to a light post and look at the reaction THOSE got.

Git Em SteveDave

@Hiphopopotamus:after a long, horrible day in iraq, you made my night with that comment. thanks.

looney82

@djdare: And the trains, and the boats, and the lorries in the smaller countries?

Also, I'm not thrilled knowing that activated electronic devices can just be delivered willy-nilly through carriers like DHL and FedEx. A lot of companies invested a lot of money in sinking barriers to prevent things like truck bombs from crashing into the lobbies of skyscrapers. Nice to know a potential bomb will be hand-delivered to detonate upon reaching the GPS coordinates.

OMG! Ponies!

fun = run my apologies

djdare

@OMG! Ponies!: I'm assuming DHL had other deliveries to make for those 55 days... not positive... just guessing.

@HoseHead: Also assuming that since DHL was involved things worked a little differently for this package than for your average fun of the mill box.

djdare

Looks legit to me... here are the travel instructions:

[biggestdrawingintheworld.com]
[biggestdrawingintheworld.com]

jonny

That totally blows my mind. Certainly it's genius, maybe a little megalomaniac complex going on too, but certainly a profound artistic vision.

...Not even high (ok, a little)

MagnoliaBoy

I also find this hard to believe simply because there are likely to be huge gaps in the data that the GPS would have received. When packed away with other packages in trucks, trains, planes, etc. it's likely to have spotty reception or no reception at all. The metal shells and shelves of trucks would likely block the signal, as would the holds of ships that it would travel in. It was likely also packed away with lots of other packages in airplanes, and depending on the contents of those and the location within the aircraft they could have blocked or degraded the signals as well. This was most likely meant to be some viral advertising dreamed up by the artist and DHL. If they did, in fact, send this GPS on that world tour then I really would like to see the raw data that it recorded.

IphtashuFitz

Bah! "Astolog-artists" did this already on a much bigger scale! Heard of the big Dipper?

adkitchen

this is absolutely the biggest crock of shit i have ever seen. this is simply impossible. i worked for DHL for a few years and i can tell you that there is no way a package can take a specific route. it's a hub and spoke system. plus, planes cannot just fly where they like. there are corridors they must stick to. What, they just flew around in circles for this dick head? and finally, i don't care what he says, he didn't draw anything on the earth. it's just frickin' data plotted on a map.
what a load of crap!

HoseHead

Yeah, if this qualifies as art, guess what's even bigger? A constellation

Hardcore1

His next project is a shipping container with only a GPS unit and a plastic bag which, upon completing its route around the world, will create the world's biggest carbon footprint.

I like art but not when it inordinately wastes resources.

OMG! Ponies!

Bangko, Malaysia...

nice going...

shinchan

What the video fails to mention is he specifically ordered overnight service and it still took 55 days.

Hiphopopotamus

in theory, this is one of the greatest artistic concepts ever.

the real question is, how much truth is there in what he really did?

tuanye

Don't really care if it's fake, (It's probably not if DHL was in on it) I really like the idea. Some of you nerds just don't understand art for the sake of art.

Josh_Geyer

@Matthew77: Yeah, I agree.

Well, I'm off to see Crystal Skull...bye.

pdok

What an incredible waste of time and energy.

Matthew77

So he had to sketch on a map to end up with something that looks sketched on a map?

nojo

what a crock of .....so you're telling me he rented a boat and did curly cues out in the ocean?? Right!!

Kevin

yeah what a total load of bullshit..

krisve

i don't really believe that there was an actual gps in there... but anyway, great concept and final result...

glad to see slovenia in the vid if even for a second...

KoRnholio8

glad that i can be the first person to call BULLSHIT.

bchains

Mad mad mad props.

Windhawk

Even though people who scream "fake" at everything on the internet are the most annoying people on earth, this is absolute bullshit.

aardvarked