http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B1EF1958D4097110

Frequently used letters in 2008: Client gift cards.
For the years-end gift I sent my clients a rough snapshot of our popular email threads in 2008. I pulled the subject lines from Mac Mail using an AppleScript that grabs the details from each message and stores them in a text file. The next step is done in Processing, where emails are analyzed for character frequency. The scale of each letter in the alphabet is then drawn according to how many times it appears in the subject lines of the emails. The result is a simplified look at the colorful conversations of a passing year.

Files
• Pull Details from Email in Mac Mail: Download AppleScript (Write Email Details to Text file)
• Process emails for character frequency in Processing Download Processing Sketch (Analyze Text)

Data Visualization Theater from Adam Harvey on Vimeo.

Using the air quality timestamp made in Processing, which shows the amount of pollution and the peak force of the wind speed that day

NYC Air Quality Data 2008 from Adam Harvey on Vimeo.

Moodboard for final project
images from SHOWStudio: Perroquet, SHOWStudio: Violence, Kirlian Photograph of Key, and Cigarette Photo research for V5s

Research for my final exam: I’m interested in exploring Kirlian photography, iridology and other alternative medicines that are visually compelling but scientifically unsupported. There have been many failed attempts at using visualization in the sciences dating back to some of the earliest experiments such as those in composite photography by Thomas Galston. In these failed attempts people diagnose patients, as all doctors do, with their eye. What’s interesting here is that it is difficult to see anything wrong with a person unless it has already become a problem.

As a second idea, totally unrelated, I’m interested in creating a visualization of how to eat locally. This is more of an infographic than a sense-graphic, but the idea purports the question “can we see what foods are in season?” Of course note, but how many people are aware of the what are the best vegetables to buy right now? The most seasonable? And if its local?

A 30-minute exercise to visualize our fingerprint:

I chose to work towards the idea of a Kirlian Photograph where electric fields radiate outwards from an object. In my sketch, it is only a simple particle system that emanates out of the mouse cursor.

As an example of what I’ve done so far, I put together a collage of the work pointing to the senses

View Processing Sketch >

Visualizing a database of wine. More wine info can be found here
• The tasting notes are from Winestate magazine, from their back issues 1996-2000:
http://www.winestate.com.au/
• Exported from this program called WineBanq: http://www.winebanq.com
• http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/wine/aroma-chart.asp Descriptor words merged into broader
categories
• http://www.littlefatwino.com/winedb.html a completely visually chaotic wine database
• University of Florida citrus Research and Education Center sorted by Aroma Thresholds — also has
Taste thresholds
http://www.crec.ifas.ufl.edu/rouseff/Website2002/Subpages/database_hj_Frameset.htm
• http://www.littlefatwino.com/winedb.html a completely visually chaotic wine database

CocoRosie: http://www.myspace.com/cocorosie
Bunny Rabbit and Black Cracker:http://www.myspace.com/loversandcrypts

Sketches for a visualization about wine

The exterior of the container is a futuristic pod-like stationary spaceship. It brings many adjectives to mind including the less flattering plastic and artificial to the bragworthy awesome and wicked. Unfortunately, they didn’t let visitors take photos inside; this way the contents stays fresh longer. So you’ll have to visit it for yourself either in NYC until Nov. 9. Then it moves to London Moscow and Paris. NYC wasn’t the first though, both Hong Kong and Tokyo had it earlier this year.
Aside form the exterior architecture the most memorable part was the experience inside. It made me feel like a VIP without even paying a dime. The audio tour was timed and talked you through the whole exhibit. I liked this better than the usual go-at-your-own-pace style because there was TLC put into that timed walk. Every step I took inside was planned yet I never felt forced to move on. Put up your branding guards because it’s hard not like CHANEL after they treat you to the free show and then pack you up with a free magazine of art at the end. Mobile art container is way one to call it, but more aptly it is a grandiose mobile church of commercialism and branding. Go ahead I dare you to walk through and NOT like CHANEL.
Also cool was the VIP cube of mirrors

After a long night of crafty costumes and plastic concoctions seeing the Hilary Beseth show at 11 Rivington had just what I needed, a good dose of nature. In her work she adapts the capabilities of nature, bees and chemical reactions, to build complex structures. Basically she outsources her work to bees. Does anyone have any moral objections to animals making art? I didn’t think so. It’s great. Perhaps better than the computer. What does the computer do if not help us realize our potentials in the physical and natural world? And where does design draw it’s inspiration if not from the natural order of things?