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Data Visualization

From CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times

Data Visualization is the visual-symbolic representation of information or data. It is used by artists and designers to illustrate sociopolitical relationships and to reveal networks of power. Similar terms include info-aesthetics, concept visualization, locative media, info graphics and mapping.

Contents

Artistic Projects

An Atlas of Radical Cartography

An Atlas of Radical Cartography, 2008

Lize Mogel and Alexis Bhagat's An Atlas of Radical Cartography is an edited collection of maps and essays published by the Journal of Aesthetics and Protest that deal with social issues including globalization, waste management, surveillance, migration, and extraordinary rendition.

From the jacket:

An Atlas of Radical Cartography provides a critical foundation for an area of work that bridges art/design, cartography/geography, and activism. The maps and essays in this book provoke new understandings of networks and representations of power and its effects on people and places. These new perceptions of the world are the prerequisites of social change.

See also:

Code City

Code City is a website featuring interactive maps of housing in New York City. It was created by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP).

Did You Know 2.0

Did You Know 2.0

Did You Know 2.0 is a data visulization about globalization and the rapid changes occurring in our world. It started out as a PowerPoint presentation for a faculty meeting in August 2006 at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, CO. The original version was created by Karl Fisch and was later remixed by Scott McLeod. The presentation was first released on the Web in February 2007 and to date has since been viewed by over 15 million viewers.

Because we are educators in the United States, our experiences and perspectives are going to be somewhat America-centric. However, we believe that the themes of Did You Know? are global in nature and apply to schools and children around the world. We want all children to be successful. We do not view the growing importance of India and China as negative but rather as additional opportunities for everyone in the world. We do not mean to gloss over the very real issues that countries such as India and China face, and we recognize that globalization and “flat world” factors have downsides just like other societal shifts. We prefer, however, to focus on the positive benefits and on doing what we can to help children learn and grow so that they may become successful digital, global citizens.

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eRiceCooker

eRiceCooker, 2007

Annina Rust's eRiceCooker (2007) tracks and visualizes Internet news about genetically modified rice.

According to Rust:

Whenever there is a new report about GM rice, a quarter cup of rice is dispensed into the cooker. When the cooker has enough rice for a meal, water is added automatically to the rice and the cooker is switched on. When the rice is done, an email is sent out to inviting people to eat the rice. The more news reports appear, the more rice is cooked, the more often invitations are sent out. The project is designed to create awareness to issues surrounding genetically modified organisms by producing excessive amounts of cooked rice and attempting to feed people with it.

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The Hidden Cost of War

The Hidden Cost of War, 2008

The Hidden Cost of War is a data visualization that provides a detailed accounting of the price tag for the Iraq war. The visualization is based on data from Nobel Laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz's and Harvard economist Linda J. Blimes' book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.

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I Met the Walrus

I Met the Walrus is a visualization of an interview with John Lennon about Peace.

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Joshua Callaghan

Joshua Callaghan is an American artist / film maker whose work combines wit, dark humor and critique of American material culture. For a recent exhibition at the bank gallery in LA, Callaghan used found materials to create abstract sculptures of graphs and charts mapping a variety of data.

Justice Mapping Center

The Justice Mapping Center uses computer mapping (GIS: Geographic Information Systems) to better understand, evaluate, and communicate criminal justice and other social policy information.

London Biotopes

London Biotopes, 2007

Tuur Van Balen's London Biotopes (2007) maps and visualizes tap water in a number of London neighborhoods.

According to Van Balen:

The pharmaceuticals and chemicals we take eventually end up in our drinking water again. This results in local differences in tapwater, based on the food we eat and the drugs we take. Notting Hill tapwater benefits from the highest density of organic shops, tapwater in the city of London is enhanced with various stimulants and Golders Green 'produces' a very fertile water due to the low concentration of people taking anti-conception pills. This website helps you share and discover these sources.

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News Brews

News Brews, 2007

Benjamin Brown's News Brews (2007) is a steampunk-inspired automatic coffee maker that brews coffee based on information gathered through the daily news.

According to Brown:

The News Brews device is an exploration of the possibility of creating a beverage which provides information about the daily news. News Brews connects to internet news feeds and parses them to determine the relative frequency at which different coffee growing regions are mentioned. It then brews a cup of coffee from freshly ground whole beans which contains relative proportions of beans grown in the regions in that day's news.

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News Knitter

News Knitter, 2008

Ebru Kurbak's NewsKnitter (2008) is an automated knitting device that converts information gathered from the daily news into knitted garments.

According to Kurbak:

News Knitter converts information gathered from the daily political news into clothing. Live news feed from the Internet that is broadcasted within 24 hours or a particular period is analyzed, filtered and converted into a unique visual pattern for a knitted sweater. The system consists of two different types of software: whereas one receives the content from live feeds the other converts it into visual patterns, and a fully computerized flat knitting machine produces the final output. Each product, sweater of News Knitter is an evidence/result of a specific day or period.

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Nuage Vert

Nuage Vert, 2008

HeHe's (Helen Evans and Heiki Hansen) Nuage Vert (Green Cloud) (2008) was a site specific week long public installation that used laser tracking to project a green illumination onto the chimney emissions of the Salmisaari power plant in Helsinki, Finland. The illumination adjusted its shape and size to the contours of the vapor with the dimensions of the green glow directly reflecting the electrical consumption of nearby residents.

According to HeHe:

Nuage Vert is based on the idea that public forms can embody an ecological project, materialising environmental issues so that they become a subject within our collective daily lives. Its material, collective and aesthetic dimension distinguishes it from other approaches. A city scale light installation onto the ultimate icon of industrial pollution, alerts the public, generates discussion and can persuade people to change patterns of consumption.

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Running the Numbers

Barbie Dolls, 2007

Chris Jordan's Running the Numbers (2007) looks at contemporary American culture through the lens of statistics. His images provide a glimpse into our real consumer culture, a sobering visual representation of the statistics we normally fail to "see."

According to Jordan:

Running the Numbers looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 32,000 breast augmentation surgeries in the U.S. every month. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. Employing themes such as the near versus the far, and the one versus the many, I hope to raise some questions about the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming. ~chris jordan, Seattle, 2007

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Superfund365

Superfund365, 2007

Brooke Singer's Superfund365, A Site-A-Day, is an online data visualization application with an accompanying RSS-feed and email alert system. It provides 365 visualizations of some of the worst toxic sites in the U.S. (this is roughly a quarter of the total number on the Superfund's National Priorities List). Superfund is the federal government's program to clean up the nation's uncontrolled hazardous waste sites.

According to Singer:

Each day for a year, starting on September 1, 2007, Superfund365 visited one toxic site in the Superfund program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). We began the journey in the New York City area and worked our way across the country, ending the year in Hawaii. Today the archive consists of 365 visualizations of some of the worst toxic sites in the U.S., roughly a quarter of the total number on the Superfund's National Priorities List (NPL).

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The Sheep Market

The Sheep Market, 2006

Aaron Koblin's The Sheep Market (2006) is a collection of 10,000 sheep made by workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk. Workers were paid 0.02 ($USD) to "draw a sheep facing to the left."

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TerraForm

TerraForm, 2007

Johannes Bruckner's TerraForm (2007) explores social, economic and political relations in times of globalization.

The 8-minute short film "Terra form" deals with the progress, problems and contradictions of globalization. The carefully researched facts and complexities are in the form of an animated graphic info, from the material that she describes: the people. The film puts the finger on the wound of globalized capitalism. While the globalization of far-reaching progress brings with it, the fruits of this development only very few good people. Without prefabricated solutions Johannes Brueckner tried a little of the social responsibility of the latest designer and thought-stimulating. (Google translation from German)

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The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree

The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree, 2008

The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree is a website created by Brave New Films that allows visitors to virtually spend three trillion dollars - the estimated cost of the Iraq war.

The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion, America's most expensive conflict since WWII. Can YOU spend that money better? Here's your chance to go on a virtual $3 trillion shopping spree and prove it!

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights Animated

Universal Declaration of Human Rights Animated, 2008

Seth Brau's Universal Declaration of Human Rights Animated is a compelling visualization of the document written by Elenor Roosevelt over 60 years ago. It is reported that only 5% of the world's population knows the declaration exists.

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External Links

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