'Biggest drawing' just a big hoax

A Swedish art student who claimed to have created the "biggest drawing in the world" using a GPS device and an international package delivery service has admitted that the drawing is a hoax.

Erik Nordenankar had claimed that he placed a GPS device in a briefcase on March 17 and then sent the case on a 55-day trip around the world with DHL. He originally stated on his Web site that he had given DHL specific travel instructions on the route that the briefcase should take to yield the drawing. After the package allegedly traveled over 6 continents and 62 countries, it was returned to him in Stockholm, Sweden, where he downloaded the GPS coordinates that were recorded by the device to his computer to generate the image.

The technique is described this way: "My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing."

His Web site included two YouTube videos purporting to show the briefcase during its journey and delivery receipts for the package during its circumnavigation of the globe.

However, many visitors to the site pointed out that the route described in the drawing was unlikely to be followed by DHL pilots.

"Were the DHL pilots on acid?" asked one visitor.

Another visitor pointed out technical flaws in the project description.

"A GPS signal cannot penetrate dense materials," wrote a reader using the name Samppa79. "That briefcase looks dense enough to block the signal and the roof of a car or thick walls of an airplane blocks the rest."

Nordenankar has since posted this message to the bottom of the site--presumably because he doesn't want to spoil the surprise--admitting his hoax. "This is fictional work. DHL did not transport the GPS at any time."

A DHL spokesman told the Telegraph that the delivery company had allowed Nordenankar access to a warehouse in Stockholm for a school art project and that it was interested in discussing the hoax with him.