1. bioephemera
  2. Subway lines as cello strings; an atlas of loneliness

Subway lines as cello strings; an atlas of loneliness

By bioephemera on February 9, 2011.

I get mail with wonderful links in it, but I'm hard pressed to find the time to post them, so my apologizes to those who've sent me things and not heard back. I'm beyond swamped. In the meantime, perhaps you'll enjoy these two nontraditional takes on "mapping." First up, map as music (or is it vice versa?):

"Conductor" by Alexander Chen

Conductor turns the New York subway system into an interactive string instrument. Using the MTA's actual subway schedule, the piece begins in realtime by spawning trains which departed in the last minute, then continues accelerating through a 24 hour loop.

The technical details are here.

Next up, we have a metaphorical map representing the (virtual) American quest for love:

i-47d058482753150a752093d2ab3e9e5e-Nowpizzeria.png

"A More Perfect Union: New York State" (detail) by r. luke dubois

"A More Perfect Union" looks at American self-identity through the medium of online dating services. Culling data from over twenty online dating sites, the work is organized according to the same heuristics as the U.S. Census, sorting dating profiles by Congressional District and subjecting the imagery and text to statistical analysis.

r. luke dubois is represented by bitforms. Thanks to Miles, who is always finding great things, for the heads up on dubois, and to Jennifer for the subway music.

Tags
Artists & Art
Dataviz
Destinations
ephemera
Film, Video & Music
Love
Maps

More like this

AU Students Debate the Internet's Impact on Society, Part B
This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. For college students who grew up online,…
AU Students Debate the Internet's Impact on Society, Part A
This fall in the sophomore-level course I teach on "Communication and Society," we spent several weeks examining the many ways that individuals and groups are using the internet to alter the nature of community, civic engagement, and social relationships. For college students who grew up online,…
Friday Fun: The 123 Worst Musicians of All Time
Music critics. Got to love them. Just the right mixture of disdain, hipster arrogance and snobbery to set the teeth on edge. Ooooh, love that band no one has ever heard of. Hate that band that "sold out" and became famous. They were so much more authentic when they were poor and no one heard and…
New mapping tools bring public health surveillance to the masses
by Kim Krisberg Many of us probably look into cyberspace and are overwhelmed with its unwieldy amounts of never-ending information. John Brownstein, on the other hand, sees points on a map. Brownstein is the co-founder of HealthMap, a team of researchers, epidemiologists and software developers…