I started my planertary study with the view of visualising data. Unsuprisingly, I think the most interesting global network of data is the internet, specifically our communications with one another over it. I leveraged the Twitter and Google Places API to plot all my twiter followers and everybody I follow on Twitter on a map of the world, emphasising for social reach. I light of the contemporary 'echo chamber' media narrative I thought it would be interesting to look at the geographical difference (or lack thereof) between the media we consume and the people who consume our media. Ideally I'd like one to be able to type in any twitter user and see their global following/follower network but due to the plotting mechanism (every following/er with a location in their bio has to run through the gplaces api for a lat/lang) it takes a while to scrape the data; I'm sure this can be optimised in the future.
I wanted my physical artefact to display the density of follower areas, and relay some information about the relationship between followers and followings. I chose to use layered acrylic that is cut by thresholding a still shot of the data (from this pen). Since the social reach of the people I follow is not relevant to my network, I chose to display this as a flat layer at the back, revealing spots of mirror behind it. I think the object has a great presence, but the physicality of the layered plastic almost overwhelms the piece and distracts from its priority of visualising data.
Build files generated from this Codepen demo.
Physical artefact made with lasercut acrylic (5mm clear, 3mm frosted, 3mm mirrored) and aluminium tubing.