Data visualisation and Processing

Data is constantly entering into out lives, whether it be through social media, the news or word of mouth. Artists and designers can rely on data as a source of information and a theme for work. Designers such as Lev Manovich uses data gathering to give his work a very human interaction.

Essay Question

I chose to do question one of the essay questions, 'How does meaning get into the image? where does it end? And if it ends, what is there beyond?” (Barthes P152, 1977) Explain & critique this question posed by Roland Barthes using a range of design works of your choice as examples, making use of other writers work to expand the discussion.'

I found this question the most thought provoking as it allowed me to explore the meaning behind being a designer, what that meaning is and what lies beyond it. For my final project which links with this essay I had to look into processing and i found many people and a lot of work which inspired me. I chose to look closely at moving image , how it can be coded and created using processing, how it differs from other processing programmes, how it is received and the final outcomes and where it began for the artists.

Adam Ferriss is a designer from Los Angeles I came across whilst researching processing designs "Adam Ferriss is one of those technologically-minded creatives who is able to put his ever-growing knowledge of code and processing to use building aesthetically wondrous digital art for the rest of us to enjoy. His images make me feel like I’ve just taken some psychedelics and stepped into one of those crazy houses you get in funfairs, where there are giant optical illusions on every wall and the floor keeps moving under your feet, except these are made using algorithms and coding frameworks and, for the moment at least, they don’t exist beyond the screen."
( Quote from itsnucethat.com interview)

Phototrails is another of his projects which visualises large amounts of data. He makes high resolution visualizations created with custom software using 2.3 million Instagram photos from 13 global cities. Together with Nadav Hochman and Jay Chow.

His project ' The exceptional and the everyday 144 hours in Kyiv' is a project that shows the use of Instagram during a social upheaval. It uses computational and data visualization techniques, they explored 13,208 Instagram images shared by 6,165 people in the central area of Kyiv during 2014 Ukrainian revolution (February 17 - February 22, 2014). Along with Jay Chow, Alise Tifentale, and Mehrdad Yazdani.