Earlier this year, digital artist Jer Thorp used the New York Times Article Search API to create visual displays exploring the areas of focus and interconnection found in articles.  The Flickr sets posted by Thorp map changes in coverage over the course of time for narrow topics or keywords, or depict a broader range of themes over a shorter period of time, such as the relationships between key terms during a single year.

The most striking displays juxtapose two themes, diagramming their mutual waxing and waning through the years.  The image above–showing relative references to hope and crisis since 1981, the pairing of regulation and innovation or socialism and capitalism provide visual histories of changes in public perception and civil society.

Thorp hopes to refine the system by developing visualizations of linkages keyed to specific events, including the span of presidencies or more discrete events such as September 11th.

Our perception of animals has changed dramatically over the last century.  The decline of agriculture and the expansion of the middle class have brought a view of animals that ranges from sentimental to anthropomorphic.  From one generation to the next in my own family, for example, my vegetarianism and the status I give my cat seem worlds away from the functional yet fond views my parents developed growing up on small farms.  While shifting social mores have changed the way we perceive animals, new technologies have given our collective sentimentality a new twist.  Moving from adoring animals themselves, new media have allowed us to idealize other animals in an abstract way, creating a class of nonhuman celebrities ranging from LOLcats to dramatic rodents, instant icons who flit across public consciousness.

The emergence of webcam zoo stars and viral animal heroes inspired artist Amy Youngs to explore how technology has mediated the relationship between humans and other animals. Why Look at Animals? allows viewers to watch webcam loops on a “furry, handheld animal-shaped screen.” Youngs feels that the images appeal to people for a number of reasons, ranging from a sense of cuteness to a desire to squander time on the internet to an inchoate curiosity about nature. Despite differing motives, visitors to these sites find themselves identifying with individual animals. Youngs’ installation makes the process of watching the images less clinical, giving audience members an interface that feels–to some extent–like an animal.

A more recent project explores animal celebrity. Her collection of Superstar Webcam Animal Buttons allows people to download images and create buttons or desktop wallpapers showing their favorite online stars. Watching the animals online, Youngs explains, has made them immediately available to her, creating a sense of personal recognition and vicarious connection:

They may be just regular pets, zoo animals and farm animals, but because they live their lives “live” on an internet camera, they are almost always available to me and they feel like they are my pets. Perhaps others share this feeling with me and will recognize these superstars as their own.

The works represent a unique blend. While celebrating the connection between humans and animals, the works also explore the idea of nature as entertainment and the nature of viral celebrity.

The works depict an ongoing exchange between scientists, artists, and the public.  The collection includes images that shaped and inspired Darwin’s interest in the natural world as well as pieces that explored the public debates over then new biological and geological theories.  The blending of these two streams led to a finer appreciation of biological and geological morphology in art, as well as more subtle depictions of the similarities between humans and other animals.  As the public began to appropriate (or misappropriate) themes from Darwin’s work, terms and images became fodder for contemporary debates.  Grinning apes graced editorial cartoons; images of workers and the poor assumed atavistic undertones as Gilded Age leaders sought to rationalize social inequality.

Perhaps most interestingly, the exhibit explores the connection between Darwin’s research and the development of Impressionism.  Examinations of structure and color in organisms gradually opened the door for artists to explore form and color as abstractions, providing an intellectual foundation for the new school of art.

The proposed solution brings something old and something new to the table.  During the Great Depression, districts quickly found themselves forced to slash programs as parents and children became more reliant on the services provided by schools.  “The sword that hangs over education, University of Wisconsin President Glenn Frank glumly noted in 1933, “is the sword of imperative retrenchment forged in the fires of an irrational depression. The peril lies not so much in the existence of the sword as in the way we may wield it.” Many schools used the sword to cut textbook funding, halting the purchase of new materials.  Paradoxically, old-line Progressives who had advocated education reform in the 19101 and 1920s often led this charge.  Reformers saw a freeze in textbook spending as a short-term sacrifice–a means of stretching school budgets through what many first hoped would be a short recession.  This logic seems to play a large part in the California plan, which a state press release describes as a “Proposal To Save Money And Stretch Resources During These Difficult Times.”

On a brighter note, the California plan follows in the footsteps of successful efforts to expand education through the creative use of technology.  Most famously, Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop per Child builds on the idea that access to technology can level educational, economic, and political barriers–a belief shared by the developers of the Hole-in-the-Wall education system. Other programs, such as the Digital Clubhouse Network, use new media to expand the scope of the classroom.

These programs–and their underlying principles–have great promise, but the style of experiential learning requires skilled, devoted teachers. While the flexibility created by using online resources in lieu of traditional textbooks could open new horizons for children in California, the proposed system will appear on the heels of a bitter feud between the state’s teachers and governor, problems with classroom size, and a continuing debate about curriculum standards, any of which could inhibit the program’s effectiveness.

EWAN uses the small (usually 50-200 mV) current created by a pH imbalance between the tree and surrounding soil to power the system. The converter that powers each unit is fairly small (”about the size of a pack of gum”) and allows each sensor to operate for the lifetime of its arboreal host.

While Voltree’s pilot project focuses on wildfire monitoring and prevention, the company hopes to find broader uses for this type of self-powered, decentralized monitoring network.  Researchers could easily use the system to monitor fragile ecosystems or gauge agricultural conditions, and Voltree has started exploring applications that would incoroprate similar monitoring networks into border security.

Askay found the inspiration for Map the Fallen in the icasualities.org databases, which provided the resources used in early effort to map combat fatalities.  The current version of the project draws information from a wide range of sources, including the Defense Department, the Washington Post’s Faces of the Fallen, Honor the Fallen, and the “In Remembrance” page of Legacy.com.

On a conceptual level, Damanhur presents members with a schema that views old age as a natural culmination of life–a period that should be embraced and celebrated.  A series of “temples” depict life as connected to the seasons and metals, with silver and gold representing winter and the final decades of life, when one’s experiences provide a foundation for future generations.

This approach to elder care and aging is firmly grounded in the community’s core philosophy. Drawing inspiration from the research of humanist psychologists such as Abraham Maslow and Erich Fromm, the Enlightenment’s emphasis on reason and progress, and elements of various New Age movements, Damanhur embraces an open, collaborative approach to social life that celebrates ongoing learning and interpersonal education. While some will find the syncretic nature of the group’s beliefs off-putting, the way in which Damanhur makes old age a public experience rather than isolating families dealing with aging or using nursing homes to isolate the elderly themselves provides a positive model for intergenerational life.

Over the course of the summer, I’ll be working with Proboscis’s Diffusion project to help children understand the idea of food miles and other ecological and ethical issues related to food choices.  As part of Diffusion’s StoryCube system, the tentatively-tltled Food Web will allow students create shifting diagrams showing a food’s complexity in terms of the number of ingredients, the geographic space reflected in a meal, and ideal meals based on health and seasonality.

For the rest of May, I will draft sample teaching units and work on the first mock up of the cubes themselves.  We’re planning a few trial runs with local community groups and food policy councils later in the summer.  If all goes well, the StoryCube set will be available by early fall.

The project transcends text-based flirting–which Mutsugoto’s creators describe as “generic interfaces in business-like venues” and historically has led to crass, detached fantasies–and the too-graphic “sexting” of cell phone cameras.  Giving partners a way to express physical love while separated, the effort stands as both collaborative media art and highly stylized sex.  Touted as “a different kind of synchronous communication that leverages the emotional quality of physical gesture,” the system raises questions about the nature of intimacy and makes partners more aware of the shifting balance of sexual and intellectual attraction.  Mutsugoto also provides an opportunity to explore the spatial limits of the body.  While highlighting the body’s connection to creativity and playfulness, the project uses light to simulate an extended form of touch.  This leads to a dynamic tension as the participant’s sphere of awareness is expanded over distance while simultaneously being focused closely on another lone individual.

Distance Lab plans to present Musogoto at the Edinburgh Art Festival in August 2009.

After the idea’s initial success in Lecco, a city northeast of Milan, other cities in Italy began experimenting with the piedibus system.  The program also became a model for  International Walk to School month as well as pilot projects in Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

The walking bus does more than fight childhood obesity and carbon emissions.  The idea integrates students into neighborhoods, making the local scene part of their emotional and social environment.  For children on buses, the trip to and from school takes place in an oddly circumscribed world.  Neighborhoods and the landscape pass by in the distance, and their awareness remains focused on the people in the seats around them.  Walking past houses and weaving through small streets however, creates a stronger sense of place and helps incorporate buildings and people into the folklore of childhood.  Friends of mine who walked to school built friendships, chatted with neighbors who were leaving for work, and skirted past an old church that–in the eyes of grade schoolers–looked haunted.  Friends who rode buses, on the other hand, developed strong social networks with other students but a weaker sense of connection to the spatial ques out the window.  Families who participate in the Lecco program have found that the foot bus forges stronger connections between students (who previously had been dropped off at school by their parents) and gives children a sense of participation in the community, especially regarding issues related to the environment and quality of life.