Onderschrift
Intro
Reactivating AmsterdamREALTIME will become a reality. Between now and the spring of 2026, we are restoring the 2003 Flash-based animation and update the web platform to contemporary expectations.
We collaborate with our partners:
-creative coder Bente van Bourgondiën
-Waag Futurelab
-Front-end developer- designer Alain Otjens
-LI-MA living Media Art
-curator Sanneke Huisman.
The project is possible thanks to the generous support of the AFK.
In 2002, the pioneering locative media art project AmsterdamREALTIME playfully showcased how GPS technology would revolutionize human orientation and spatial memory years before the smartphone era.
In the two decades since, AmsterdamREALTIME has grounded our work on mobility and landscape, and has been a beacon for many artists and art historians who are also fascinated by the experience of space.
As part of the restoration, we will also revise the project with former participants and team members, emphasizing the changes that have unfolded in media art, and in the digitalized experience of space.
During LI-MA’s yearly Simposium Transformation Digital Art, creative coder Bente van Bourgondiën and Esther received invaluable feedback, which will help to make informed restoration decisions during the coming months.
AmsterdamREALTIME. screencapture of the interactive flash animation, that is currently being restored.
In the early 2000s, before smartphones and Google Maps, Amsterdam residents relied on their own mental maps to navigate the city. Location-based services could be accessed with dedicated GPS devices, which had only recently become precise enough for mapping and were not commonly used. At the time, media art was at the forefront of exploring both the creative possibilities and critical implications of these locative technologies, long before their widespread commercial adoption.
References
For more details on the resoration, visit the Living Media Art blog. https://li-ma.nl/article/reactivating-amsterdam-realtime-23-years-later/
For more detailes on AmsterdamREALTIME see the projectpage