Flickr Graph is an application that explores the social relationships inside flickr.com. It makes use of the classic attraction-repulsion algorithm for graphs. Start exploring your contacts by entering your flickr username or the email address you used to register there.
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Although current online chat environments provide new
opportunities for communication, they are quite constrained
in their ability to convey many important pieces of social
information, ranging from the number of participants in a
conversation to the subtle nuances of expression that enrich
face to face speech. In this paper we present Chat Circles,
an abstract graphical interface for synchronous conversation.
Here, presence and activity are made manifest by
changes in color and form, proximity-based filtering intuitively
breaks large groups into conversational clusters, and
the archives of a conversation are made visible through an
integrated history interface. Our goal in this work is to create
a richer environment for online discussions.
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C5 Corporation specializes in cultural production informed by the blurred boundaries of research, art, and business practice. Focus is on the development of tactical strategies involving information visualization, databases, and distributed networks.

Previous projects include Radio Controlled Surveillance Probes RCSP, 16 Sessions, YDSTYDS (You Don’t See That You Don’t See), 1:1, and SoftSub. Full documentation is available at www.c5corp.com

C5 members:
Joel Slayton
Steve Durie
Geri Wittig
Bruce Gardner
Jack Toolin
Brett Stalbaum
Amul Goswamy
Matt Mays

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D-tower is an art piece, commissioned by the city of Doetinchem in the Netherlands, that maps the emotions of the inhabitants of Doetinchem. D-tower measures HAPPINESS, LOVE, FEAR and HATE daily using different questions.

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MapHub proposes to research the introduction of a geographic and historical data sharing application in an urban landscape. MapHub proposes to be a peoples’ map,  a map of an urban geography determined not by traditional methodology but instead by the members who participate and contribute everyday in the experience of urban life. MapHub proposes to be both a tool and a system that gives users pen and paper to record their unique and situated perspectives and then deliver that documentation to others. Combining culture, history, narrative, and caution, MapHub might tell the tales that remain untold.

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The Battle of Algiers recomposes scenes from the 1965 film of the same name by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo. The original film is a reenactment of the Algerian nationalist struggle leading to independence from France in 1962. The success of the actual battle for independence has been attributed to the nationalists’ organization: a pyramidal structure of self-organized cells. Lafia and Lin recomposed the film along a cell-based structure, in which French Authority and the Algerian Nationalist cells are represented by stills from the film and move according to different rule sets. When cells of different camps intersect, they trigger video cells displaying each side’s tactics (as depicted in the film) according to the rules of the system.

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Infome – noun, from: information + ome (- suf., all, the totality of, (as in genome))

The Infome Imager allows the user to create “crawlers” (software robots, which could be thought of as automated Web browsers) that gather data from the Web, and it provides methods for visualizing the collected data. Some of the functionality of the Infome Imager software is similar to a search engine such as Google, but with some significant differences. The search engine crawler collects data about the intended content of a page, the actual words written by one person, the Web author, in an (questionable) effort to index the Web according to the “meaning”, the semantics, of Web pages. The Infome Imager crawler collects “behind the scenes” data such as the length of a page, when a page was created, what network the page resides on, the colors used in a page and other design elements of a page etc. It glances down into the subconscious of the Web in hopes to reveal its inherent structure, in order to create new understandings of its technical and social functionalities. Another difference lies in the way the data is presented to the user. The search engine uses algorithms to sort the data according to one theory or another, in order to present the user with pages containing a few selected links each. The user is not allowed to see the actual data, but a subset of it, selected and sorted by a computer. The result of an Infome Imager “search” is an image with all collected data, potentially a vast amount of information, presented in a way in which the human brain, not the computer, is put to work on what it does so well – creating intuitive understandings of large quantities of information.

The Infome Imager interface allows the user to manipulate the crawler’s behavior in several ways. The user decides where it should begin crawling; it could for example start on a Web page specified by the user, a page resulting from a search on a search engine, or on a random Web page. The crawler can be set to either visit a page once or every time it encounters a link to it. The data resulting from many revisits will create repetitive patterns in the visualization, revealing the linkage structure of the Web sites, while data resulting from single visits will generate distinct data. The crawler can take many hours depending on the amount of pages it should visit. The activity and the result of the crawler can be accessed from the “manifestations” page. The visualizations created by the crawling process functions as an interface linking to all the sites the crawler visited.

The crawler and data mapping software that together form the foundation for the Infome Imager software was originally developed for the “Mapping the Web Infome” show exhibited in conjunction with “Lifelike” at New Langton Arts in SF in July 2001.

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Mapping the Web Infome is a net art endeavor developed in conjunction with the exhibition LifeLike at New Langton Arts gallery in San Francisco. A group of artists were invited to use software developed for the exhibition. The Infome software enables the creation of web crawlers – automatic processes that access web sites and collect data from them – and the creation of visualizations/mappings of the collected data.

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1:1 was a project created in 1999 which consisted of a database that would eventually contain the addresses of every Web site in the world and interfaces through which to view and use the database. Crawlers were sent out on the Web to determine whether there was a Web site at a specific numerical address. If a site existed, whether it was accessible to the public or not, the address was stored in the database. However, the Web was changing faster than the database was updated and in 2001 it was clear that the database was outdated.

1:1(2) is a continuation of the project including a second database of addresses generated in 2001 and 2002 and interfaces that show and compare the data from both databases.

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ecosystm is a real-time representation of global currency volatility fluctuations, leading global market indexes, and up-to-the-minute weather reports from JFK airport.

Commissioned in 2000 by Zurich Capital Markets, an investment company based in New York, ecosystm takes data ZCM uses every day, re-purposing it to drive a 3d environmental simulation viewers explore using a joystick.

ecosystm consists of flocks of “birds” (each flock representing a country’s currency) and branching “tree” structures (each tree representing a country’s leading market index). As a market index advances, the tree grows new branches. If the index declines, branches begin to fall off the tree. Similarly, a currency’s current value against the dollar is indicated by an increase or decrease in the population of the flock.

The flocks also exhibit certain behavioral patterns determined by the volatility of their currency. Volatility is a common financial analysis equation that examines values over time periods. A currency is considered volatile when its value fluctuates considerably over a given period. In ecosystm, daily volatility determines the territory the flock occupies. If a currency is stable, the flock has an expansive territory and can fly throughout it in a graceful manner. If, however, the currency is volatile, the flock becomes very “excited”, and their available territory is considerably reduced in size. In addition to this, a currency’s daily volatility is compared to its yearly volatility, which in certain cases produces exceptional behaviors. If the daily volatility exceeds twice the yearly volatility, the flock is “hungry” and it “feeds” on its country’s leading market index (as represented by the trees). If the daily volatility exceeds the three times the yearly, the flock becomes “aggressive” and attacks a neighboring flock.

As an added visual element, the current weather conditions at JFK airport determine the “weather” inside ecosystm. Runway visibility and cloud cover directly effect visibility and cloud layering in ecosystm.

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