Visualisation of Activity in Afghanistan using the Wikileaks data from Mike Dewar on Vimeo.

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.

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The Art & Law Residency > Exhibition and Symposium
Maccarone > 630 Greenwich Street > New York, NY 10014

Exhibition Dates:  August 16- August 27
Gallery Hours:  Monday-Friday 11 am-6 pm
Artists: > Eric Doeringer > Alicia Grullón > Charles Gute > Nate Harrison > Bettina Johae > Miguel Luciano > Benjamin Tiven > Angie Waller > > Admission is Free.

Information about my work that is included:
http://angiewaller.com/books/originality-cases-and-materials/
http://angiewaller.com/video/beauty-for-ashes-2/

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Work in progress for my upcoming group show at Maccarone Gallery.

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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

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From The New York Times:

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.

Article:
Joyce Found Too Graphic, This Time by Apple, Julie Bisman, July 13, 2010
Previously:
Not only can Apple control what you say, but how you say it.

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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.

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Source:

AP-Greek Tourism Official Quits Over Husband’s Tax Debts, May 17, 2010

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23 min. Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present Photo by Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović

Marina Abramović’s  performance “The Artist is Present” at her MoMA retrospective is unsettling. Her posture and stillness are otherworldly. She’s a guru. A crowd of people surrounded her perimeter, their eyes locked for hours. The foyer was brightly lit and cameras were stationed at each corner. To add to the spectacle while I was visiting,  a superfan stood in line wearing a robe that was an exact copy of the robe worn by Abramović.

MoMA, being social networking savvy these days,  has a Flickr pool of the performance participants. This set of images allows a new reading of the performance that one would never contemplate in the presence of the actual piece. The grid of faces allows for a quick deduction that about 1/8 of them are in tears, a few are celebrities, and according to one comment – New Yorkers have bad hair (ouch! – guilty as charged). Three weeks into the show comes the blog: “Marina Abramović Made me Cry.”

The blog’s author, 28-year-old Katie Notopoulos, hadn’t seen the exhibit before making the blog, even though she apparently works down the street. (As a fellow overwhelmed New Yorker, I am not one to judge not taking advantage of things that occur down the street.) I find this detail interesting in wondering if her unique read of the performance was aided by the fact that she had not attended the exhibit. For instance, would you be inclined to research the Flickr pool after visiting? This theory would be difficult to prove.

Notopoulos, did eventually see the exhibit, but did not partake in the performance. However, based on her Flickr expertise, she is receiving as much coverage as the man who lost his membership for engaging in inappropriate behavior (hopefully). If this comment sounds snarky – it is not in relationship to Notopoulos’s blog – perhaps I roll my eyes at WSJ’s lack of reference when covering the blog. They treat the blog author as an expert on the phenomenon of people coming to tears during the performance. I would think an expert on hypnosis or the silva method would need to be consulted as well.

The site of the exhibition (MoMA) is filled with copycat performances in all corners. I even saw a charming couple wrapped in duct tape recreating “Point of Contact” on the street outside.

Perhaps because of MoMA’s enormous size, I often feel blasé when I finally make it through an exhibition and its crowds. Abramović’s work in an institutional setting can surpass its mall-like confines and  inspire people to get their freak on in the streets and engage Internet surfers and lackadaisical  journalists. I will be sad when it leaves.

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With the introduction of the new iPad, a new wave of freedom of speech concerns has swelled to the surface. The New York Times reported on Pulitzer Prize winner, Mark Fiore, being rejected by the iPhone app store because it “included cartoons that ridiculed public figures.” After the public embarrassment, Steve Jobs personally wrote to Fiore and called the rejection a mistake.  It is not clear that other applications making political commentary will be accepted in the future. A slideshow of other rejected applications is available at The Huffington Post.

This story brings up an interesting point about the future of freedom of speech as our personal devices migrate to platforms that only have access to information approved by one publisher — Apple.

After all of these years of enjoying freedom of expression and content on the Internet, we are steering in a conservative, corporate direction with a new device that controls the information we are allowed to receive. Not only that, Apple guides the design principles of their volunteer-content-producer-army…that’s us.

A blog post at Information Architects discusses design “suggestions” in Apple’s HI Guidelines.

Now one thing just didn’t click: The guideline to make apps look like physical objects. It’s quite clear why Apple would try to push designs to imitate tangible things:

1. It’s a touch interface: 3D objects look more tangible and inviting
2. Everyday interfaces are easy to understand and familiar in their use
3. Glitzy interfaces are easier to market

Everybody in the iA team strongly doubted the validity of that particular guideline, but we had no way to verify or falsify our doubts. So we went full steam ahead: Everything 3D! Make a newspaper look like a newspaper! Make that word processor look like a type writer! Use wooden backgrounds! And why? Because Apple said so. – IA Blog

Before the Internet, Public Access Television was developed to give airtime to diverse voices and points of view. Unlike the Internet, there were still communities who could challenge content they found objectionable. There were times when obscure technical requirements would disqualify material from being aired. It was suspected that these technicalities were a guise for censorship.

When the “Spectrum News Network” of Orange County came under fire by conservative members of the community because of its content for gay audiences, the cable access channel proposed a two-week review process before programs aired to ensure “that programs meet certain technical standards, such as clear picture resolution. It also allows the board to reject obscene or defamatory material.”

Carol A. Sobel, senior staff council for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said mandatory review does not violate cable law. The guidelines must clearly state the technical criteria, however, “so that technical quality does not become a mask for eliminating controversial viewpoints,” she said. – LA Times

Not that Apple is approving any content they deem objectionable, the aesthetic standard set by Apple seems ambiguous with ample room for arbitrary enforcement. As the App Store is an open marketplace, it is unclear why Apple should enforce its aesthetic standards on designers creating content for the device. If an app is poorly designed, no one will buy it. But already, Apple has rejected content based on the design having “limited utility.”

The “Pull My Finger” app allowed users to virtually ‘pull’ a character’s finger to have it emit a farting sound. “Pull My Finger” was initially rejected by the iTunes App store on the grounds that it was of ‘limited utility.’ Three months later was accepted and went on to become one of the store’s most popular apps. –Huffington Post

Before you rush out and buy your iPad, just remember the struggles of free speech and the “Pull My Finger” app. Not only can Apple control what you say, they can control how you say it. Has anyone had success in turning that annoying Ken Burn’s effect off of their slideshows?

Photo above from Pee Wee’s Funny or Die video.

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As an homage, I made a movie of some of my favorite searches using the new google search engine movie maker.

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