Duration: life long
Data Collected: This project involves my keeping a record of all the swimming, ice skating and reading that I do, and maintaining ongoing cumulative totals in an attempt to, over the course of my lifetime, swim the equivalent distance across the Atlantic (5400 km), read the same number of pages as the complete Encyclopædia Britannica (32901) or skate the distance across Antarctica to the South Pole (2990 km).
Objectives: It first began as a motivational tool. The three activities chosen were things that I wanted to do more of either to keep fit or to expand my knowledge / vocabulary. The project was a way of tracking my achievements in each for these areas and encouraging me to do more.
Outcomes: The project exists as a web-based art work which is updated weekly. Each challenge has its own screen which recalculates, every second, my finishing age based on my current rate of progress. My main focus has always been the Trans-Atlantic Challenge, as this was to begin with the most unrealistic goal to reach. The other two challenges, which at first appeared easy, have been somewhat neglected. I have never really got into ice skating regularly (despite living opposite the National Ice Centre) and I have recently taken to reading other texts rather than novels. I am still confident that there will be time to pick up and complete both these challenges later in my life.
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