Sydney Summer 2007 

Page 1 - Jamming Google Project 

O.K So the story goes like this. At some point in January - it was announced that Google would be updating their 'Google maps' thingo with some nice high-resoultion images of Sydney - to be generated by a special low flying plane - and, for the first time ever, it was announced where and when the plane was going to be. In fact Google even put up a webpage where you could drag a cursor and be told at what time to expect the flyover. This came along with the extortion to 'get together with your family, make a sign, look upwards and wave'.

Nice.

The idea being, of course, that whatever was going on right at the moment the plane made it's snap would be immortalised into the Google Maps application, and then be accessible to anyone in the world as they perused Sydney.

The date Google picked for this foolhardy lark, was, the 26th of January, which, depending on which way you look at it is either Australia's national Holiday and a fine exuse to get pissed with your mates on a glorious sunny day and wave the Australian flag, or 'Invasion day', ie: the commemoration of a rather darker side of things since this is the anniversary of the day when it all suddenly went bad for the original inhabitants of this great southern land (but still a good excuse to get pissed with your mates - but let's not wave that particular flag around).

So, as is Australia, it is a day of torn and contradictory feelings and emotions. Yep - what an awesome place she is - but bloody hell some people got fucked over in the process though.

Which brings us to the point of all this. A few friends and I decided this was the perfect opportunity to do a little 'culture jamming' - and getting our own little message across, quietly, hopefully sneaking under the radar, whilst those around us are going frothy at the mouth in an orgy of jingoistic, flagwaving, nationalistic fervour.

Here's some pics of the process.

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Pez's concept for the layout of the Sign		Christian and I experimenting with projecting letter images onto a surface for cutting out - we later abandoned this approach...

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Pez and Clare turn up with the Fabric - d'ya think we've got enough? Godblessem!		And the first letter takes shape

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Bownie, Clare and Pez...		In the Presbytery parking lot - look!  Even had dropshadow!

We finished up creation of the letters by about 2:00am. Folded them neatly into five large piles of white, and got some sleep before the big day!

Jan 26th dawns bright and beautiful!

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First to arrive - stake out the area, right in front of Old Govt. House in the middle of the Domain and - bake in the sun of a glorious summer day		One or two people slowly start turning up, then Suddenly Lach comes running up: 'They've changed the times - it's 5 minutes - we've got 5 minutes!!

Panic

The next 40 minutes was high adrenalin as we rushed to get the letters unfurled and secured to the grass (with a zillion tent pegs) in time.

 

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Then suddenly it was more or less in place...		And then, of course, the inevitable 'allo, allo allo - what's going on 'ere then?'

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Cop and Ranger negiotiations - desperately trying to buy more time, the wind is now picking up and threatening to blow everything away.		One ranger is patiently walking around pulling out all our pegs as we lie on the letters to stop them blowing away - Lach is checking in with a friend monitoring the Google site to see if the plane is overhead yet...

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Is it done yet?  Threats of fines and arrest...		And from a distance...

Finally we thought we had achieved what we intended and had the letters visible for the time Google specified they would be overhead
so we aquiesced to the Rangers, rolled up our sign and retreated to the shade of a nearby tree (did I mention it was HOT?!!).