Self-portrait with GPS

Update, 5/27, 5 p.m. PDT: The student has admitted that his tale is a hoax. Read the follow-up here.

A Swedish art student has posted online what he calls the "biggest drawing in the world," though the picture would seem to be more accurately described as a drawing on a rather modest scale that came into being through a round-the-world technique.

Perhaps that's why a sort of subtitle on Erik Nordenankar's Web site, just above the image, is this: "GPS Generated Self Portrait."

The technique is described this way: "My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing."

On the "biggest drawing" Web site, details are sparse, but Nordenankar does also thank package delivery service DHL for helping to make the portrait possible.

He writes that the briefcase began a 55-day circumnavigation on March 17, ending up earlier this month back where it started in Stockholm, Sweden. He then downloaded the GPS information--the trip covered 62 countries on six continents--to his computer and made the self-portrait in a single stroke.

I've sent e-mails to both Nordenankar and DHL for more information and will update this post as I learn more.

While the briefcase's travels may (or may not) have followed the adage that the shortest route between any two points is a straight line, the drawing itself involved more than a few loop-de-loops and curlicues.

You can see Nordenankar's drawing technique in action in the video here, one of two videos on the "biggest drawing" site, along with the full self-portrait.

Is it a hoax? The little bit of evidence I've found so far in poking around the Web suggests that it is not. For instance, there's a similarly hirsute Erik Nordenankar listed as a student at Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, Sweden--with an exam project described as none other than the "biggest drawing in the world."

[ptroxler]

hahaha, a total HOAX!

[eanwebster]

Hoax or not, it is against most airline regulations to operate a PED (personal electronic device) on an aircraft below 10,000 ft....even or especially in the cargo hold. Cargo holds contain wireless fire dectection units and a GPS could in theory interfere with this and set off a false alarm. Cargo X-ray would probably have picked this up.

[natasdm01]

Ah! As long as the device does not broadcast, then it is permitted. It's the same idea as the GPS Letter logger device that the USPS is using to fine tune their delivery system:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/21/gps-letter-logger-promises-to-keep-tabs-on-mail/

[ptkdude--2008]

I'm sorry, but would anyone believe this? Aside from the previously-stated issue of operating GPS receivers on aircraft, you don't get to tell a package delivery company exactly on which route to take a package, DHL appears to have the tendency to lose/have employees steal packages (www.consumerist.com for details), and the "instructions" indicate the package was to have gone to St. Louis, but it doesn't specify WHICH Saint Louis. How was DHL to know which one?

[riekl]

Shameful that Cnet would post this.

#1) The loops in the middle of the ocean are impossible
#2) There would be NO GPS Signal to even a military grade GPS 90% of the route.

Sorry .. COMPLETE HOAX , it was one thing when Engadget posted this but completely shocked that Cnet is this stupid.

[pcfish]

"NO GPS Signal to even a military grade GPS 90%"
Are you kidding me? we have a dozen of satellites on the sky around the globe, thus the name GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM.

[servermaker]

If one doesn't understand technology and/or have the slightest bit of common sense, then this "story" is plausible. I love the 400 mile diameter loops out in the middle of nowhere, repeatedly - that's an optimized flight plan with oil at $120 per barrel. Sent emails to DHL to confirm the story!? ROFL.

[The_Decider]

Quote: "If one doesn't understand technology and/or have the slightest bit of common sense, then this "story" is plausible."

What a concise description of CNET's writers.

[chade2001]

man, this story came out a week or so ago. Engadget said it's fake, even DHL said it's only a work of fiction.

"Is it a hoax? The little bit of evidence I've found so far in poking around the Web suggests that it is not."

hahahahahaah