hannahk2-LookingOutwards-07

The project I chose for this week is “Flight-Patterns” by artist, Aaron Koblin. It is a computational information visualization project created as a series of experiments for the project, “Celestial Mechanics”. The project basically takes paths of air traffic over North America, and visualizes them in color and form, creating luminescent cotton-like webs of light and paths. To make this project, FAA data was parse and plotted using the Processing programming environment. I admire this project because the artist was able to take something as mundane and repetitive as flight paths, and turn them into a stunning visual map. The lines look like the thinnest strands of thread and resemble the shape of the united states. I can see the artists’ creative sensibilities manifesting in the work, because seeing his other works he is obviously drawn to fragile and delicate, complex and elegant lines. I am also extremely amused by his project, The Single Lane Superhighway, in which he invites visitors of his website to draw a car facing right, using a simple drawing tool he created. After reaching 50,000 cars, he compiled them to drive on a never ending parade on a single line. I thought this was really cute.

http://www.aaronkoblin.com/project/flight-patterns/

http://www.aaronkoblin.com/project/the-single-lane-superhighway/