For my personal geography project, I attempted to expand my personal heat map of Vancouver by using Strava to track 3 of my journeys: 1 bike commute to UBC and 2 walks with my dog. I then used the “flyby” feature to find records of people that cross my journey in real time. I picked one person for each journey, marked the place where we had our “missed connection” on a map and then tried to glean what I could about their lives from their internet presence, starting from their Strava profile and then jumping into other forms of social media and other websites. Finally, I wrote each person a missed connection, using popular phrases from craigslist and dropping hints about their personal lives.
This project is about how even when we are exploring a place in the physical world, like when I am getting to know my new city by walking my dog, bike commuting and going for runs, a part of us exists online, whether we are directly sharing our route via Strava or just have an online presence in the background of our minds. It also looks at how we might meet people in person versus how we meet and “know” people online.
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