Aaron Koblin – Flight Paths

Flight Patterns – Aaron Koblin

I am combining economic, psychological and creative studies as a Behavioral Economics major and an architecture and (hopefully) design minor. My combined vision of these two fields is actually exactly what is being manifested in this project. I love that in economics, human behavior is solidified and represented in a graph (hence the BePO major). The design comes in for most effectively representing this data to a viewer, and I think that Koblin used design perfectly to emulate the nature of flight paths. His sensibility comes in when making decisions about how to use brightness to suggest crowded areas, color for flight type, and opacity to enhance movement. So, this artwork essentially captures the type of work I want to be involved in. The team used Processing, a software designed to mimic hand-drawn visuals, to visualize the data. I would guess that the algorithm uses the start and endpoints of flights, as well as the speed, height, and time of day. There may be code that provides the most efficient and safe route using engine science and other air traffic to generate paths.