Lines of Flight

Lines of Flight is not a game, but a series of digital poems generated using flight tracking data from my gliding sorties over the course of 2023/24. This data is firstly visualised in 3D, and then parsed using a Word2Vec language model, in which the GPS tracking points form queries for generating interrelated strings of words (as derived from a tiny training set of vintage aviation texts).

Why? A rare chance to combine my interests in creative coding, digital writing, and flying. A more academic explanation can be read below...

The Rationale

The essence of this project is an attempt at depicting flying in terms beyond the practical, and, indeed, the human centric. I'm interested in how the human and "more-than-human" registers of atmospheric flight come together, as well the greater contextualising histories, infrastructures, and environments that entangle them. A running academic commentary is provided alongside the poems, as well as a full bibliography.

Lines of Flight has been inspired by my own, very particular outlook on the airborne encounter as a glider pilot, as well as an artist and an academic in digital culture - an uncommon space in which my ability to negotiate the fluctuating sky is a critical matter of flight safety, as well as bringing a range of visceral experiences into dialogue with my conceptual thinking. Needless to say, this is quite an academic piece, as much as a playful, creative one, but these aspects can be safely ignored in favour of just enjoying the visuals.