Wow! Talk about inventiveness and using what tech tools you have available.
Most people use Excel for number calculations or data listings, but not Tatsuo Horiuchi. He uses the spreadsheet application to draw elaborate Japanese motifs.
At 73, Tatsuo Horiuchi has been creating artwork using Excel for ten years. According to an interview with him by PC Online, he did not use Excel at work, but saw other people use it to draw graphs so he figured he could make drawings using the office tool.
According to the artist, graphic software is expensive while Excel is already pre-installed in most computers and is easier to use than Paint. He tried using Word but was limited to the paper sizing and he could draw more freely in Excel.
Tatsuo Horiuchi has established himself as a digital artist and has presented his work in multiple exhibitions.
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An Artist Who Turns Data Into 3-D Displays
From Fast CoDesign:
We’re deep in the midst of a data viz heyday. Infographics are ubiquitous, presenting facts and data sets in straightforward ways that are, by design, easy to understand. Willem Besselink takes a different approach by translating directed sets of information into physical forms. What’s not explicit, however, are the complex stats that inspire each work.
Each new installation is dictated by its own unique guidelines and rules, which themselves are based on a number of dependent variables, including site-specifics, materials, color scheme, and budget. “Setting these up and following them all through the project allows–or forces–me to do what needs to be done,” he says, in part following the lead of “hero” Sol Lewitt’s Sentences on Conceptual Art.
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A ‘Whom Do You Hang With?’ Map of America – Radiolab
Some mappy metrics for your Friday.
Have you ever heard of Where’s George? Dirk hadn’t. It’s a website that tracks the movement of dollar bills. Thousands of people participate. All you do is take a bill out of your wallet, type the denomination, serial number, the date and your zip code onto the Where’s George? site, and then, with a pen or a stamp, deface the bill with the words “WheresGeorge.com.” After which and this is key, you spend it. So now your bill is moving from business to business, person to person, and if and when another Where’s George volunteer discovers it, she or he will note where, note when and spend it again. Since dollar bills pass between people, Dirk’s friend suggested why not us the “Where’s George?” data to get a sense of where people go, and, just as interesting, where they don’t go?
That’s what Dirk did. After checking 1,033,095 reports describing the movement of 464,670 bills, he came up with this map. In the Seattle area, for example, his team found that over two weeks, only 7.8 percent of the bills moved more than 500 miles away. Most of the money stayed close. More interestingly, Dirk’s team began to notice virtual borders, lines that the money rarely crossed. In this map, you can see the territory marked by the Canadian border to the north, a bit of California at the southern end, and Idaho to the east. Oregon and Washington seem undifferentiated. But at the edges, a blue border seems to capture and contain most of the cash and the people? moving within. Those lines, Dirk marked deep blue.
via A ‘Whom Do You Hang With?’ Map of America – Radiolab.
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Maps are often seen as boring, factual statements. But, as this op-ed points out, they are in fact colorful, editorialized visualizations of landscape.
Thanks to the open data movement and Google Map Maker, anyone with a computer can create a map. These maps tell a story, but it’s a subjective one. And while that can be a powerful tool, it can also skew perspectives and cloud a debate.”We should really teach people to read maps in that way,” says Laura Kurgan, an associate professor of architecture at Columbia University. “Maps are arguments, just like a piece of written journalism is an argument.”
more via How a Map Is Like an Op-Ed – Sara Johnson – The Atlantic Cities.
From NPR:
…from clouds to storms, from storms to lightning videos, from lightning videos to lights, from lights to … whatever. … You tell yourself, "Just one more, one or two more, then I’ll stop." But you don’t stop. They call this "surfing," but you’re not surfing — you’re not free. You keep clicking, knowing that you shouldn’t, knowing that you don’t want to … but you DO want to.
[In] a subtly addictive, psychologically sophisticated art project, created by Dina Kelberman, who must have studied at the Lay’s Potato Chip School of Addiction. (They had an ad that dared: "Betcha can’t eat just one!") She has pulled images from the Web and arranged them into a sensuously sly series of related sequences that move, in baby steps, just like your mind does, from one pattern to another.
Once you start looking at Dina’s pictures, I warn you: It’s very, very hard to stop.
Let me know how it goes in the comments.
The Wonderful World Of Whisky Art : The Salt : NPR
Who would have thought dirty glassware could be so artistic? This guy!
Button, who lives in Phoenix, Ariz., has captured upward of 75 photographs of whisky residues that he considers good enough to share with the public.Some of his images will even be making their way over to Scotland in May for an exhibition at the Islay Festival of Music and Malt.And Button doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. “I’m trying to let the work just kind of grow organically and see where it takes me,” he says.He recently started experimenting with manipulating the whisky as it dries — moving the liquid around to create different deposit patterns.He has also begun to wonder about the science behind his images. “I find them fascinating in a weird kind of way,” he says. “I think it’s a perfect blend between science and creativity.”According to Howard Stone, head researcher at Princeton University’s Complex Fluids Group, the rings and waves seen in Button’s images are probably the result of particles that are left behind once the alcohol has evaporated.These particles, which give the liquor its flavor and color, are present in “very, very small quantities,” says Stone, and can create an “imprint of what the [whisky] was doing when it was trying to evaporate.”
via The Wonderful World Of Whisky Art : The Salt : NPR.
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The Singing Ringing Tree – Memolition
Designed by Tonkin Liu, the Singing Ringing Tree is a musical sculpture standing in the wind on a hill (Crown Point) overlooking Burnley, UK. From far and wide, the tree’s profile is visible on the horizon, appearing and disappearing in the mist. The tree is constructed of stacked pipes of varying lengths, orientated to lean into the directions of the prevailing wind. As the wind passes through the different lengths of pipe, it plays different chords. Each time you sit under the tree, looking out through the wind, you will hear a different song (check out the embedded video by following the link below).
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