psemme

Art, space, time

Transients – Geospatial Graffiti

Our lives are defined by space and time.  We need a way to annotate our passage – to decorate the timeline of our existence. 

This concept uses generally accepted methods of identifying location and measuring time to create a digital framework onto which information can be uniquely attached/stored for later retrieval and analysis. 

Core Philosophy

A person’s conscious presence and physical passage through space-time is absolutely unique.  Every person’s existential trajectory is their gift to the universe. At every instance of space-time there are virtually infinite measurements one could make to memorialize the “event”. One might argue that, at the limit, the observation of all possible measurements through time is the literal definition of the universe as we perceive it.

We, as humans, are deeply aware of this passage and have, throughout history, created ways to mark our journey both for ourselves and for others. For example, today it is popular to measure and record the visible light spectrum at a specific space-time, a process that produces a “photograph”. Our methods of annotating and storing each of our stories, however, have not evolved for hundreds of years.

Transient – Abstract

The core philosophy envisions and supports the concept of what we will call a “transient” – the most precise possible measurement of someone (or something) in space-time.  A transient is, theoretically, similar to the concept of the “point” in 3D geometry but adds a time element. In the real world, a transient’s theoretical x,y,z,time coordinates translate into the highest possible resolution, latitude, longitude, altitude and UTC.  These four inputs are required for all transient creation and, together, form the unique ID (TID) for the transient in a storage system.

Content of any kind can be stored with the transient. This content can be considered a decoration or “tag” for that unique combination of space and time. In this way, a transient mimics the process of physical graffiti – “tagging” – insofar as a graffiti artist creates their piece in a specific, physical place and at a specific date/time. The transient concept envisions a person, equipped with a network-connected digital device, and the ability to programmatically connect digital content to a temporal, geospatial coordinate system/framework – to “tag” a precise point in space and time. The definition of “content” is intentionally vague as it could be anything that can be digitally created, manipulated, analyzed, stored and/or retrieved.

Transient (the app) – Description

A mobile application that enables a user to “tag” a specific time and place (latitude+longitude+altitude+universal time coordinated) with any type of content – aka graffiti.  The app stores these tags, “transients”, and provides various search functions for later retrieval by the user or others. Content can be of any type – as simple as a text note, photo/video, or a more sophisticated piece of content e.g. executable code. 

The app enables users to create transients via any audiovisual UI type that supports GPS location tracking and UTC time capture.

  • Visual
    • The default transient creation UI is a map where users click to create a transient at their current spacetime. 
  • Audio
    • Speech recognition will convert speech into textual content that gets stored w the transient at the time of creation. 
  • Chat
    • Users can enter transient content via any popular chat interface (including SMS) and have it stored w the transient at the time of creation. 
  • CLI
    • Users can create transients via a CLI by following the appropriate syntax.
  • API
    • The transient host system has an open API that enables users to build their own UIs for creating transients. 

All transients are stored permanently on the blockchain. The application serves as a proxy for interacting with transients on the blockchain.  Users own, outright, all of their transients. The application is not needed to access transients once stored on the blockchain.

The app enables users to discover transients using specialized zooming features which work contextually within the selected search/discovery mode.

  • Map
    • Zooming in reveals finer and finer lat/lon/utc resolution, up to the max allowed by the measurement standards
      • e.g. 34.0170201, -118.4918021,2024-01-18T23:32:13+00:00
    • Every lat/lon/utc combination is a unique ID for the transient (TID).  This ID is, in essence, the highest possible resolution for discovery/search. 
    • Users can “pin” a specific lat, lon, and/or UTC, or specify a range of any of those variables, to affect the discovery/search results. 
    • Individual and/or groups of transients are shown iconographically on the map.  Clicking an icon reveals greater detail about that specific transient (e.g. it’s actual contents) or group. 
  • Timeline
    • Zooming in/out filters transients by UTC range, irrespective of lat/lon
    • UX could be a map or some other linear graphic showing current, past and future time scales. 
    • Individual and/or groups of transients are shown iconographically on the map.  Clicking an icon reveals greater detail about that specific transient (e.g. its actual contents) or group.
  • Transient-specific
    • A visual way to categorize and filter transients based on specific parameters known by the user. 
  • Pure search
    • Key word search that returns transients whose content and/or meta data contain search terms.
    • Also includes AI-based search options, e.g. image search

Additional functions

  • Transient “ownership”
    • Each transient/TID is owned by its creator.  
    • TIDs can be transferred between users. 
  • Community sharing
    • Transient groups, organized by context and/or other filters can provide valuable information to specific user communities. 
    • Transient creators can assign TIDs to public groups to help the community
      • TIDs can be set to auto-assign at the time of creation based on custom parameters – e.g. location range. 
  • Geospatial triggers
    • Interactive triggers can be set for specific TID parameters, location and/or temporal ranges, or custom conditions (e.g. dependency chaining).  These triggers can, in turn, create additional transients or perform any other computing function. 
  • Marketplace
    • Users can “sponsor” a specific lat/lon/utc range. 
    • The effect of this could be:
      • Compute functions executed whenever a transient is created/updated/etc in a sponsored “range
  • Personal history
  • Health/Fitness
  • Sports
  • Games/Entertainment
  • Travel/Tourism
  • Documentation
  • Regulation 

Links

Photo by Red Mirror on Unsplash

psemme

Leave a comment