The LA Swimmer – 43123 Pools I Have Not Visited and Never Will
Idea & Concept
Benedikt Groß andJoey Lee
Programming
Sures Kumar andBenedikt Groß
Pool Route Calculation
Stefan Landsbek
Footage
Google Street View API
Hyperlapse Library
Hyperlapse.js
Imagine swimming across Los Angeles as if pool-by-pool they form a river through the city; 43123 oases stitched together in a desert of hyper-urban reality. You float unabashed down your unmapped highway of water, but are confronted very quickly by the fact that you are not welcome in this realm of kidney and clover bowls, Olympic-sized parallelograms, and hot tubs. Threatened by an unforgiving obstacle course of disgruntled homeowners and an impending court order you continue from pool to pool, your reconciliation awaiting you in the next chlorinated ecosystem.
The LA Swimmer is based on the dataset of “The Big Atlas of LA Pools” and inspired by Frank Perry’s 1963 film, “The Swimmer”. We imagined that through the LA Swimmer, we might be able to make an allusion to the vision of a “river of pools”. However instead of a journey of self-discovery, we rather invite you to leap-frog from pool-to-pool and to see LA through the Google Car’s perfectly tall street view camera.
→ See the video at Vimeo: The LA Swimmer — 43123 Pools I Have Not Visited and Never Will
