Using GPS traces, we made a living portrait of 24 hours in Birmingham with the people who move through its streets, parks, waste grounds and tow paths on foot for the Fierce Festival and the Midlands Art Centre (MAC)

A Day in the Life – The Walkers of Birmingham is a portrait of a city as experienced at ground level. The animation emphasises walking, making lines from other forms of transportation more feint.

The outcomes of ‘A Day in the Life, the Walkers of Birmingham’ have so far been a performance lecture given at the MAC as part of the Fierce Festival, as well as an ongoing cartographic animation with a soundtrack of participants narrating their own stories behind their traces. This animation shows a day in the life of Birmingham by playing all the GPS traces back as if they had happened on the same day, but keeping the time of day intact. A 24-hour portrait of the city is achieved with the night owls, shift workers and insomniacs making their way home as then the early morning commuters, dog walkers joggers, post men and women beginning their day. Parks and open spaces blossom during daylight hours, a cycle courier buzzes around the centre and a woman says ‘Hello’ to her Nan on the way to work.