More and more everyday our physical world gets intertwined with the virtual. From VR games to augmented reality our lives are getting closer to the lives that you see in futuristic movies. One man was able to virtually simulate a traffic jam which affected drivers in the real world.
In a red wagon being pulled down the the street, Simon Weckert, who is a performance artist, experiments on how the real and virtual world work together. He packs 99 smartphones in his hand-pulled cart and sets off down the street. Based of his location he can change a green traffic-free street in Google Maps to a dead stop red street in the app.
Therefore he is able to change the routes of people in the real world by using virtual means. Whereas there would have been more cars driving down this particular road there are close to none. This is because the app sees that route is delayed and it reroutes its users.
On Simon’s website he writes a detailed summary of what all he did and how the virtual and the physical words can affect each other. The article starts off with,
99 second hand smartphones are transported in a handcart to generate virtual traffic jam in Google Maps.Through this activity, it is possible to turn a green street red which has an impact in the physical world by navigating cars on another route to avoid being stuck in traffic.
Check out the video below and Simon’s website for more info.