Sweat, sneakers, and pixels: how runners turned the streets into a giant canvas for GPS art (9 photos)

While traditional artists spend hours mixing paints on palettes, sports enthusiasts prove that creating a masterpiece requires more stamina and a pair of sneakers than a brush. Starting with a New Year's joke—a banal inscription on a map of a Canadian town—digital running enthusiasts have launched an entire movement where streets and paths serve as traditional canvases. True, creating in this genre is much more challenging than on paper, as the strict laws of navigation prevent artists from drawing lines through the walls of houses or impassable lakes. However, the results of hours of running with a tracker in their pocket transform a grueling cardio workout into a large-scale work of contemporary art. One can only sympathize with those athletes who, due to an unfortunate turn at a fork in the road, accidentally transform a proud unicorn on the map into something completely obscene.