Tyne ‹ ~Flow

Tyne is a visualisation of data from 5 sensor values recorded by ~Flow, a tidemill floating building on the River Tyne that generates its own power using a tidal waterwheel. ~Flow was initiated by Owl Project and Ed Carter in collaboration with Modular. This data, which also drives beautifully built, wooden instruments and sound generators located on board of ~Flow is publicly available on Cosm.

Each recording of the data captures the levels of oxygen, acidity, nitrates and salinity values in the water as well as the turning speed of the waterwheel. This set of values provides the basis for a flow simulation which generates a unique image per measurement.

Particles are continuously moving from right to left, being attracted or repelled by four circular zones representing the sensor values. The overall behavior of the particles is influenced by the turning speed of the waterwheel. If the value of one sensor is above its mean value, particles are repelled. If the value is below the mean, particles are attracted towards the center of the zone.

This mechanism creates slight turbulences in the stream which in turn produce a single image based on the drawn paths of the particles.

Movement in Manhattan

Inspired by the beautiful and elegant Interactive Wind Map created by Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg I have begun to explore the flow of people within a city. An ideal dataset to do this would include the GPS traces from thousands of people wearing trackers for weeks as they go about their daily lives. Organizations such as crowdflow.net and OpenPathscollect voluntarily donated data of this type and might be fruitful to explore. I decided, instead, to use geolocated tweets to try and see how the movement of people is affected by the urban landscape.

Drawing Water

Drawing Water is a constructed landscape shaped by the relationship between where water falls and where it is consumed within the United States. It builds images to expose the reality that water is channeled, pumped, and siphoned to locations far from where it falls. Although the paths are imagined, Drawing Water is based on real data and it reveals a clear truth about water resources and use.

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