DUTY FREE - Cartographies of Elite Hypermobility and Their Ecological Costs
Niels Baumgartner
Hochschule Luzern
Every day, thousands of private and business jets traverse global airspace almost invisibly. The installation Duty Free condenses publicly available flight data into a fragmented, cartographic movement log of the global polluter elite. Flight routes become visible in real time between the digital and physical planes and materialize as printed documents upon arrival. Over the course of the exhibition, a growing archive of intangible traces and the irreversible ecological costs of excessive hypermobility is created. Process Documentation and Thesis: https://dutyfree-process.baum.garden/en The installation consists of a real-time projection visualising all private jet flights currently in the air worldwide, alongside an ever-growing physical representation of flights as they land. This physical archive is produced by a custom-built machine incorporating a thermal printer and a bespoke paper-feed mechanism. Visitors can interact with both components of the installation: they can navigate and explore the projected visualisation via a touchpad interface and engage directly with the accumulating printed records produced throughout the exhibition.