Totems

Totems

Totems by Krister Olsson, are three 3D forms, reminiscent of impossible sex toys. The project site describes the work :

The forms in Totem were developed by analyzing online pornography viewing habits. Custom software was written to sniff all incoming Web traffic at a discreet location, sorting packets by destination IP address, time, and source IP address or domain name (if available). Domain names and IP addresses were checked by hand for pornographic content with non-pornographic sites culled from the sorted data.

An application was then written in Processing to model the data. Time was represented by the vertical axis, with each model symbolizing a single day. Each form was vertically cropped to create variance in height. Individual bands generally represented time spent on a single site (although in some cases rapid clicking through many sites resulted in band overlap): the thicker the band, the more time spent. The radius of an individual band was logarithmically determined by the amount of data downloaded from the corresponding site.

Models were examined individually and metaphors applied to what were determined to be interesting forms. Quickie was so named because there was only a brief concentration of pornographic Web viewing over the course of one day. In Work Safe? it appeared as though large concentrations of pornographic Web viewing took place at the beginning and end of the day, bookending brief blips between 9 AM and 5 PM. The name Vacation was chosen for what appeared to be a full day of pornographic Web viewing. Further, the form was inverted manually as a reflection of the introverted nature of such activity.

Why do I blog this? I simply like 3D forms being generated from computational, generative and information visualization based processes.

Other UCLA projects include The King Has, Xylophone, Digital Grass and Enjoy By.

[also on we-make-money-not-art]

Posted on January 22nd 2006 under Locative, Objects, Processing