Sarah Choi – Looking Outwards – 07

Flight Patterns from Aaron Koblin on Vimeo.

For this week’s Looking Outwards, we are focusing on computational information visualization, which is why I decided to focus on Aaron Koblin. He is an artist, designer, programmer, and entrepreneur specializing in data and digital technologies. I decided to focus on his Flight Patterns project, documenting his own custom software with computational and interactive information visuals of the paths of air traffic over North American through color and form. This project intrigued me as a pretty heavy traveler and growing up in South East Asia, the art of having technical engineering skills to fly all over the world has been an important aspect.

The algorithms generating the work were parsed and plotted using a form of process programming. This project first started as a series of experiments for a project called “Celestial Mechanics” with his colleagues at UCLA. However, during the process, Koblin wanted to make a project of his own using his artistic skills. 

The project’s final form was manifested through his artistic ability to make interactive visualizations but also was made through technical computing skills that went along with flight patterns over the United States. 

Flight Patterns