'Biggest drawing in world' revealed as hoax
By Matthew Moore
A Swedish artist who claimed to have drawn the biggest picture in the world using a GPS device stuffed inside a briefcase has been exposed as a hoaxer.
Erik Nordenankar's self-portrait – which straddles the entire globe – was allegedly created by tracing the route taken by the specially-primed case on its 55-day journey around the world.
The artist claimed he gave the case to DHL, the package delivery firm, with exact co-ordinates detailing the stages of its tour.
When the package was returned to Stockholm he claimed he downloaded the GPS's route memory to produce the enormous drawing above. It is composed of a single 110,00km-long line that passes through six continents and 62 countries.
But after bloggers pointed out holes in Nordenankar's claim, DHL confirmed to the Telegraph that the artwork was an "entirely fictional project".
A spokeswoman said they had allowed him to film in their Stockholm warehouse as part of a college project, on the understanding that the work went no further than his art school. The GPS package was never sent around the world.
DHL now intends to contact Nordenankar to get him to clarify the origins of his work
on his website.
As "evidence" of his achievement he had posted the picture, delivery instructions, two photos of his GPS suitcase and a photo of a wad of DHL delivery notes.
He also made two YouTube videos, one showing him sketching the route onto a world map, and the other allegedly showing the briefcase at various stages of its journey.
But since releasing the drawing and details of his project earlier this month, bloggers were quick to accuse him of pushing a hoax.
Many pointed out that DHL delivery planes would have been highly unlikely to make the tight loops in the North Atlantic that form the hair of the self-portrait.
Others noted that many of the package's mid-route stops appear to be in the middle of the ocean.
"[He] could have at least centered the drawing over the land areas, so it would be more believable that DHL had made stops there, as opposed to a DHL plane making loop-the-loops out over the Atlantic," a reader called Shinanigans posted on the Neatorama blog.
"Were the DHL pilots on acid?" another asked.
Technical flaws in Nordenankar’s project also met with derision.
"A GPS signal cannot penetrate dense materials. That briefcase looks dense enough to block the signal and the roof of a car or thick walls of an airplane blocks the rest," a blogger named Samppa79 wrote.
An old instructor of mine is doing a project that records her activities (commute to work, commute to grocery shops, etc.) on the GPS system and the designs are brought to reality as embroideries
