Æsthe/tech:Tonik
Building | Beauty | Consuming | ImageArchive for June 22, 2007
Feeling Fine
Have a look at this amazing collection of sites by Jonathan Harris which, in some form or another, act as a listening post on the web, filtering text, imagery and information that deals with feelings, love, hate, and a general world state. The amazing thing about this work is the idea that we can capture an unfathomable (and seemingly chaotic) amount of information, and put it into a package that illicits a kind of visual simplicity that shapes a new way we can think about the information presented. It reorganizes the data into something we can easily understand quickly, and operates the way good graphics always do. It is no easy task to represent a “feeling”, but Harris’ subtle use of color goes a long way.
From the Metropolis article here.
Harris’ work defines a profound new kind of information design: it whittles down the world’s 70 million Web sites and blogs into a framed image of humanity. And it does it live, continuously, and autonomously. Architects and designers have experimented with computational design, letting a computer run through a spectrum of possibilities within a given set of parameters. But Harris’s creations are different: rather than static buildings, magazine covers, or shopping bags, they are constantly changing artistic responses to a constantly changing world. By using the Web as both site and material, they offer a way of seeing rather than merely being a sight…material of experience has changed. The old rituals of memory—photographs, scrapbooks, diaries, letters—have moved onto the Web, opening them up for a new kind of analysis.
