The Republic of Null Island

The physical site where the equator and the zero meridian intersect is marked with a stationary buoy in the middle of the ocean. The buoy is located in international waters off the coast of Western Africa and indicates the GPS coordinates 0° N, 0° E. This isolated and barren location in open water is far away from land and human habitation and interaction.

In virtual data space, however, it is a place full of life and activity, with ample accommodation capacities and spaces for sports and leisure, a site where fond holiday memories are made. This is because data that cannot be assigned to its correct geographic location is processed with the geographic values of 0, 0 and automatically assigned to 0° N, 0° E. Such errors arise, for example, when the geoposition of an uploaded image cannot be identified. The image is then assigned a latitude and longitude of “0, 0” by default.

Therefore, in data space, geographical zero is an ever-growing collection of faulty data from smartwatches, photo-sharing sites, booking apps and mapping services. With The Republic of Null Island, Simon Weckert gives the virtual data space a physical manifestation. The installation not only brings null data into view but also geo-spoofs visitors to The Republic of Null, where they can browse the accumulated data and add their own, which is automatically assigned the coordinates of Null Island.Simon Weckert uses The Republic of Null Island to imagine physical voids and show how they connect to the realities created by the data that manifests there.