Looking-Outwards-08

Eric Fischer

https://www.mapbox.com/about/team/eric-fischer/

Eric Fischer describes himself as a data artist and software developer, and he is based in the California bay area. His work uses data points of crime rates, traffic, transit lines, race, etc. to map the US. He said his obsession for the past few years is “what makes cities walkable.” His process consists of him carrying a GPS and first personally observing the area he is in and trying to match his walking life with what the retrospective walkability of the area is. From his personal investigations of cities, he has made art about large scale issues in the critiques of those cities, making viewers step back both physically and metaphorically. His presentation was not the most captivating, but with visuals and realistic trends I found it to be very successful. I admire the point he made about how data visualization does net necessarily have to be abstract, and that the ideas behind his work do not end up being abstract. His research thus becomes more than a realization on paper.