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Jer Thorp: Data Artist in Residence

Jer Thorp_Data VisualizationAnother one of the amazing speakers at the Geeky by Nature conference last week was Jer Thorp, a software artist, writer, and educator. He is a contributing editor for Wired UK and is currently Data Artist in Residence at the New York Times. His digital art practice explores the many-folded boundaries between science and art.

The top image is a print Thorp made based on his word frequency visualizations that he created using Processing and the NYTimes Article Search API. It is titled ‘RGB – NYT Word Frequency’ and shows usage of the words ‘red’, ‘green’, ‘blue’ in the Times between 1981 and 2011. The second image is a detail of the print. The bottom image is a screenshot of a visualization he produced based on the Guardian’s data on the Haiti Earthquake Aid by Nation. He asked how much money was being spent per citizen of these countries and converted the figures to Avatar minutes, showing how many minutes of Avatar would the aid pay for.

All of Thorp’s visualizations are beautiful as art forms as well as being incredibly useful in facilitating data interpretation. You should take a look at some of his animated visualizations here.

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Festival of Ideas

“The Festival of Ideas for the New City, May 4-8, 2011, is a major new collaborative initiative in New York involving scores of Downtown organizations, from universities to arts institutions and community groups, working together to affect change. A first for New York, the Festival will harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore the ideas destined to shape it. It will take place in multiple venues Downtown and is organized around three central programs: a three-day slate of symposia; an innovative StreetFest along the Bowery; and over eighty independent projects and public events. The Festival will serve as a platform for artists, writers, architects, engineers, designers, urban farmers, planners, and thought leaders to exchange ideas, propose solutions, and invite the public to participate.”

Worth checking out, I think. More information here.

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Bordbar

Bordbar recycled airplane trolleysBordbar, based in Cologne, processes used airplane trolleys and transforms them into high quality designer objects for private use. Bordbar trolleys are available in a variety of patterns and colors, with interior elements varying from office file cabinet, to shoe closet, to minibar, as well as the ability to implement personal requests.   via architonic

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Aakash Nihalani

Aakash NihalaniAakash Nihalani is an artist whose work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares made from fluorescent tape. He places these graphics around New York to “highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself…For however briefly, I am trying to offer people a chance to step into a different New York than they are used to seeing…”   via happymundane

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Open House: Droog

Open House_Droog Event LogoSounds interesting. I’m in.

“Open house is a project by Droog led by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Open house will be presented in a one-day event on Saturday, April 23rd, 2011. The event will be kicked-off with a symposium at Studio-X New York introduced and moderated by Mark Wasiuta of Columbia University, followed by a bus trip to Levittown, where visitors can view and participate in several house installations in the neighborhood, designed and executed by architects, designers and artists in collaboration with the homeowners. One of the installations will showcase concepts for future open houses, with proposals for new housing configurations and regulatory modifications.”

The event is free but there is an optional transportation fee from Studio-X to Levittown.

UPDATE: POST-VISIT FOLLOW UP HERE.

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Cecil Touchon: Visual Poetry

Cecil Touchon Visual Poetry CollagesI really like this series of collages by Cecil Touchon titled “Visual Poetry”. Cutting up the type into abstract shapes creates a lovely effect, but then I’m a fan of collage and type in general, so the mixing of the two is win win.

“Here, pieces of letters—once recognizable symbols—cease to exist as words and begin to communicate only as formal elements of design. They become part of the visual medium, which celebrates the true essence of the artwork”.   via trendland

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Sol LeWitt: Mass MoCA Retrospective

Sol LeWitt Mass MoCAOn my to-do list for a while now, is a trip up to MASS MoCA (in North Adams, Massachusetts) to see the Sol LeWitt wall drawing retrospective. Granted there’s time, it will be up until 2033, but the thought of being enveloped by so many LeWitt-patterned walls is worth rushing for.

“Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective comprises 105 of LeWitt’s large-scale wall drawings, spanning the artist’s career from 1969 to 2007. These occupy nearly an acre of specially built interior walls that have been installed—per LeWitt’s own specifications—over three stories of a historic mill building situated at the heart of MASS MoCA’s campus…”

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Sifteo

Sifteo Interactive CubesTwo years ago I watched a TED Talk given by MIT Media Lab grad student David Merrill about  a project he was working on called Siftables. These were tiny computer blocks that interacted with each other to make networks, play games, and music. It blew me away. Today I came across a lovely package design, by New Deal Design, for the product Sifteo which sounded remarkably similar and turns out is the company that Merrill has since founded with his partner, and co-creator, Jeevan Kalanithi. This demo explains it better than I can:


via Lovely Package