New media artist Esther Polak continues her journey across Nigeria executing her locative media art project Nomadic Milk that uses GPS technology to track the routes of a primary source of nutrition: milk. It is now possible to follow the project’s progress daily (or almost, depending on internet connection) from Nigeria at the blog space Nomadic Milk.net.

GPS tracking systems enable Polak to examine the mobility patterns behind the two co-existing dairy economies in Nigeria; the local and native Fulani dairy produce and the widely distributed dairy products of the Peak corporation, with this information the artist pieces together the otherwise invisible routes of Nigeria’s milk map and through artistic visualization compares the difference in spatial organization of both dairy economies.

Polak and her team engage with truck drivers and herdsmen to record the transport routes with combined media - video, GPS and mobile phones - accompanied by a custom designed robot capable of storing recorded data and converting it into a sand map. Equipped with mobile phones with built in GPS receivers the Fulcani herdsmen and the PEAK transporters record their journeys; one the nomadic migration of native herdsmen and the other of modern transportation via truck and van and hand hamper pushers.

The robot reconstructs comprehensible sand-drawings to be used together with the Fulcani herdsmen, the Peak transporters and the team to comment and visualize their daily routines and provide them with insight into their space, mobility and economy.

In the course of 2009 the project will finalize the installation and website showing Nigeria’s space, landscape, stories and its active, flexible economy.