The field of AI research has seen explosive developments with the creation of new text-to-image generative models like Midjourney, Dalle2, and Stable Diffusion. This presentation explores some of the philosophical concepts that underly the technology and presents some of my own work as an examination of the interplay of language and image semantics.
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Detail of isotype chart “Libraries and readers” from Our Two Democracies At Work, 1944
It all started when I was on an evening flight from New York City to Atlanta. The evening flight service had dimmed the lights, the flight was a bit crowded, and most people were asleep or watching their small screens. I was restless, had downloaded some Isotype images from Chris Mullen’s amazing Fulltable website, and for some reason stopped to really explore the isotype chart “Planning for Cotton” from ‘Two Commonwealths’ in 1945. Without any previous understanding of Soviet governmental structure, economic planning, or industrial supply chain, I was able to understand a phenomenally massive economic structure just by reading the chart. It was a transformational experience and I was hooked.
Since then I have written many articles about Isotype, and at this time, am about half-way through writing a book tentatively called “The Rules of Isotype”. As my curiosity has increased, I have taken various intensive steps towards immersing myself in the existing research as well as the actual designs of Isotype across the roughly 6 or 7 decades that its main practitioners lived and worked.
Below are links to the articles in 1 place, but I also have a growing (and substantial) archive of digitized Isotype books in full, as well as research materials of the work by Otto and Marie Neurath, Gerd Arntz, Rudolf Modley, Peter Alma, Augustin Tschinkel, and many others. I guess I’ll have to add a way of accessing that soon too.
If you have any interest or questions or just want to say hello - by all means drop me a line! I’m super excited to discuss this stuff.
Recognizing the co-creator of the Isotype as a data visualization pioneer
A deep-dive into the design of Planning For Cotton, 1945
LESSONS OF ISOTYPE — PART 1: Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain”
LESSONS OF ISOTYPE — PART 2: Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain”
LESSONS OF ISOTYPE — PART 3: Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain”
Documenting the little-known Isotypes created by the IZOSTAT — a Soviet ‘spin-off’ by Otto Neurath in 1932
The story of Discovering and archiving hundreds of Telefact charts by Rudolf Modley
Collected from Syndicated US Newspapers from 1938-1945
I’m delighted to have my ongoing Isotype research and pending first book covered by the great Steven Heller! Go check it out!
The period between the world wars showed a similar complex reality in the US, eventually resulting in massive infrastructural changes created during the New Deal.
Revisiting a 1946 pamphlet (and the role of pamphlets in educating adults) that helps explain the Jan. 6th insurrection
Our first chaotic data art performance based on isotype principles and a whole lot of community fun!
Inherently maximalist in nature, each of Chase’s maps shows a visual flair that only a master craftsperson could pull off. The combination of layout, framing, color, type style, type design, and illustration style is all clearly on display. Chase flaunts his many skills in a way that makes the viewer lean-in and start reading. But these maps are more than just skill, Chase puts his worldview on clear display as well.
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The Data Visualization Society (DVS) kicked off its first challenge on March 10th and since I’m an active member, I thought I’d make something. Since I’m one of the moderators of the #historic-viz channel, I knew that I’d like to build off of something that I shared in the channel and I’ve been a fan of Buckminster Fuller for years. I suspected that others would use a traditional map projection, so my first thought was to create a Dymaxion map.
But here’s the catch: I don't know anything about making maps and I have never used a tool to map out geospatial data. My goal in writing this article is to share my process and expose my learning journey.
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My interest in af Klint’s work is to explore her relation to scientific visualization. Many voices in the art world are claiming that af Klint’s works represent the “first” abstract paintings, but I think they are jumping to the wrong conclusion. I think her motivation was actually to visualize spiritual concepts. They see this as presaging abstract expressionism when really it’s part of a movement toward diagramming the immaterial world. The two concepts are very different.
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Garry Winogrand, “Los Angeles” 1969 © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery
I’m fascinated by culture and I’ve been obsessed with contemporary art and media for two decades. I began my career as an artist, took a detour into being an art critic for a few years, then became a professional electronic musician for the bulk of my creative life. Now, solidly in phase 2.3 of my career, I work in Enterprise software design and specialize in data visualization. This collection of writings will grow over time but focuses on art, music and culture.
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I started in design in 1990 — the same year that Photoshop came on the market. I’ve designed countless flyers and posters, album covers, motion graphics, a few books, Tshirts, and a handful of websites. I’ve crafted the brand identity for a start-up, a software development agency, 2 record labels, 3 music festivals and a STEM program. In 2016 I re-booted my graphic design practice and shortly thereafter began to create custom typefaces which are housed in a Zine called “Curious Type”.
Read MoreInfused with a jittery optimism, it is album interspersed with noise, aggression, and a tongue in cheek attitude that keeps the listener in on the joke. Fear City is a fun album that doesn’t pander, a joyride through a scattered musical universe that hasn’t been explored since his landmark album “The Unrelenting Songs Of The 1979 Post Disco Crash”.
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One of the most powerful examples of data visualization was made 118 years ago by an all-black team led by W.E.B. Du Bois only 37 years after the end of Slavery in the United States. This 6-part series explores the exhibit’s background, Du Bois’s methods and many of the individual charts.
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He does not focus design toward graphic, industrial, or decorative objectives, nor does he deny them. He does not pigeonhole design as being mystical, dogmatic, nor does he maintain that design has to be pragmatic — or even valuable. He simply outlines that design is a mental model that is focused on solving a problem, and as such, it is infinite.
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William Eggelston, “Louisiana” (from the series Los Alamos, 1965–1974) © Eggleston Artistic Trus
“Whether a photo or music, or a drawing or anything else I might do — it’s ultimately all an abstraction of my peculiar experience.” — William Eggelston
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