The intensity of the heatmap represents the number of events logged. The color range is from 0 to 60+ events over a one-month window. We cap the color range at 60 events so that low intensity activity involving just a handful of events can be seen — in lots of cases there are many more than 60 events in one particular region. The heatmap is constructed for every day in the period from 2004-2009, and the movie runs at 10 days per second.
The orange lines represent the major roads in Afghanistan, and the black outlines are the individual administrative regions.
My video “Beauty for Ashes” will be premiering at the Chicago Underground Film Festival.
‘Beauty for Ashes’ takes its title from the speech given by Robert Moses during the opening ceremonies of Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, a small swath of land near Shea Stadium escaped his development plan. This area became densely populated with family-run automotive shops that thrived despite city neglect and the absence of basic infrastructure like sewage, street maintenance and waste disposal. Now city leaders have deemed it blighted and plan to redevelop the area under eminent domain. Set in the shadow of a new stadium named after an ailing financial giant, ‘Beauty for Ashes’ is a portrait of the area and its laborers anticipating their imminent displacement.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
3:00 pm
Gene Siskel Theater, Chicago
The question of whether James Joyce’s “Ulysses” is obscene seemed to have been settled for more than 75 years. Until last week, that is, when the creators of a Web comic version of the classic novel, called “Ulysses Seen,” said that Applerequired them to remove any images containing nudity before the comic was approved as an application for the iPad.
Monday, June 14, 2010
7:00pm – 9:00pm at LaunchPad
721 Franklin Avenue
Brooklyn, NY
Doors open at 6pm. Free event. BYOB.
The panel, Crossing the Line, brings together working artists who look to other media for inspiration and sustainability. What’s gained by looking to other traditions? What’s lost? And how do different disciplines come together in the first place?
I will be presenting my data mining work along with:
Christian Johnston, a New York based photographer, has studied at International Center of Photography, Fashion Institute of Technology and TCC’s Visual Arts Center. He is a regular contributor to the New York Post where he does feature work. Some of his other clients include: Yale Magazine, ESPN, Sun Microsystems, Bank of America and MTV. His work has been exhibited at the T.C.C’s Visual Arts Center in Virginia, the Hudson Guild Gallery in NYC and at Portlock Galleries in SoNo Chesapeake, VA.
Shamar Hill graduated from the M.F.A. writing program at New York University, where he received a fellowship. He is the 2009 recipient of the JP Morgan Chase Foundation Award for fiction; 2008 Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance Award in fiction and the 2006- 2007 New York Foundation for the Arts Award in fiction. He teaches at Cooper Union School of Art.
Jon Stancato is Producing Artistic Director of Stolen Chair Theatre Company.
