Postal Voyager Blog

Powering up and sealing

Once everything has been checked and I’m ready to send the parcel, I turn everything on. First of all I turn on the Ocellus GPS device, plug in the external power supply and place the parcel by the window so the Ocellus can pick up its GPS location, this is confirmed on the Foretrack website. The R-09 is then turned on and the sound recording starts, next the cameras and then the timing circuit. I check that the timer is firing the cameras ok a number of times – the timer is set for 14 second intervals for this journey and then turn off the LCD displays to conserve power – there is now nothing to indicate the camera is working and it appears to be turned off. The acrylic lid is closed, then the cardboard lid and the box is taped up.

Posting

At this point there is a real desire to reopen the box and check everything is still working, but I just have to trust that I’ve done it right and nothing is faulty. I leave the studio and make my way to the local post office, the parcel is not heavy but a little awkward to carry and I try to keep it relatively horizontal with one camera roughly facing forward and the other backwar

It is hard to resist the temptation to point it slightly at particular things along the way but I try to treat it as a normal parcel and forget that it is photographing every 14 seconds. I feel a little mischievous and a slight smugness that I’m the only one who is aware the box I’m carrying is photographing everyone I pass or follow on my way.

  

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I’m made particularly aware of the surrounding sounds that the parcel is sampling as I walk – a bus pulling up to a stop, the hydraulic hiss of the doors, people getting on and off, passing cars with the stereos pumping, peoples conversations and the sounds of Roman Road market packing up.

 

I enter the post office and I feel a real nervous excitement, though it looks like a normal [though large] box from the outside the inside looks very much like a bomb with the battery packs, wiring, timer circuits and tuperware. As well as this, even with the tuperware, foam and polystyrene sound insulation, there is still a very slightly audible clicking of the timer every 14 seconds which I can just hear if I listen very carefully and the surroundings are not too noise. As I queue for the counter I’m feeling a mixture of concern that it’s all working ok, that it will make it all the way to it’s destination and a kind of guilty, mischievous, excitement and naughtyness which one used to feel often as a kid, but much more rarely as an adult. At the counter I request a next day delivery, the parcel is weighed, money paid, stickers attached, the parcel is passed through the hatch, I let go and that is it – I walk out.

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From now on I’ve no control or input into what happens, I can only watch it’s progress on the Foretrack website, following it’s movements, checking it’s position and trying to zoom in to it’s given location on Microsoft Virtual Earth, satellite view.

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