it’s done

Well, mostly. It’s installed and it’s on public display. The official debut is Saturday, but I mean, it’s public art, so you can go look at it now if you’re in Reynoldstown, specifically off Kirkwood Avenue and directly behind the Stein Steel factory (which I always imagine is just full of shirtless steelworkers hammering on anvils, but maybe that’s just me). I’d still like to add a few things (as a professional sports anti-fan, I still lack any Braves or Falcons memorabilia for Turner Field & the Georgia Dome), and chances are it’s a certainty that I’ll be tweaking it and repairing it over the next three months. But here it is:

Another vantage point, as the direct perspective tends to fade into two dimensions:

A close-up of Little Five Points / Edgewood (my own neighborhood is littered with the refuse of sweetgum trees, so I added them earlier today):

I added Oakland City at the last minute (lots of old hangars and steel-ensconced warehouses there):

I still have a lot of work to do, in my opinion. But it’s now available to be scrutinized by the public eye, which is both exhilarating and frightening.

now with EVEN MORE tangibility!

After some city-scouring and a few setbacks (including but not limited to hot glue melting skin, an incompatibility of the wood I selected with the summer climate of a world boiling itself, and millipede breeding season taking place on my moss solution test run), I’ve begun the process of attaching postcards, bicycle tires, outdated MARTA tokens, bottle caps, broken brick, and various pieces of business cards, retail packaging, and other local business detritus to the two massive sections of wood that will provide the foundation for the map. Check out some of the progress:

 

Bike tires for major roads, MARTA tokens for public rail (with dismantled Breeze cards as each station).

 

A view of downtown from Oakland Cemetery.

 

I mean, this is what I see when I look at East Atlanta Village.

 

The most successful moss solution by far, not that you can tell from the quality/proximity of this photo; this one a blend of buttermilk, Miller High Life, water retention gel, and clumps of dried moss (I’ll be using fresher moss for the final run). Strangely not as attractive to flies, ants, and pillbugs as the last few mixtures, and much a much thicker layer that actually resembles the moss carpet it should.

now with tangibility!

The Atlanta BeltLine is a decade-long city project that will, if all goes planned, result in a 22-mile uninterrupted loop of hiking trails, park space, and energy-efficient mass transit around the city center. For Atlanta, located in a state where urban development is probably below mosque building in the list of government priorities, that’s quite something to look forward to. More effort has gone into the construction of this project than I’d realized in the few years since I read about the idea one day on a break from shelving copies of The Secret at whichever local big box bookselling superstore in which I worked at the time.

For the third year, an organization calling themselves Art on the Atlanta BeltLine has enlisted local artists to create projects for a three-month free outdoor exhibit along the BeltLine’s under-construction corridors.

I am one of these artists. As interested as I was in doing a solo art project that would actually be observed by people who aren’t my friends visiting my little blog because I ask them to on facebook, I didn’t expect to get in. But my proposal was accepted, and more than that, these people actively seem to really like this idea. I mean, I’m into it, but all these other people too? That’s just… that’s awesome.

I’ve begun the process of constructing a 6′x4′ tangible map of the center of the city that includes the BeltLine, composed of repurposed, recycled artificial materials for the human elements of the city (for instance, bike tires stretched out as the city’s main roads and beer bottle caps for buildings in bar neighborhoods like EAV) and a continuously growing moss medium covering the more natural areas of the city, including parks, tree-lined neighborhoods, and the BeltLine itself.

The coverage so far:

This is the actual backing of the map itself, which will eventually be covered in trash & moss that will show you where you are, so to speak. I’ve divided the surface into 24 squares that are likewise traced over a map of the area I’m using. It’s certainly not intended to display every street, business, or backyard shed, but it will be as accurate within its scope as possible.

Some of the materials I’ve gathered so far that will be transformed into neighborhoods, rail lines, and skyscrapers. And my cat.

Testing different recipes for the moss medium: the uppermost third is a mixture of buttermilk, beer, moss, and sugar. The second coat is the same mixture with two tablespoons of moss-specific water retention gel (ordered specially from the internet!) and another handful of moss clumps. The third coat will hopefully be another improvement and a step towards ensuring I can ensure this map will be mostly alive. Which likely won’t be a problem anyway considering how many ants & flies are already very happy about the prospect of free buttermilk, sugar, and beer.

let’s go crazy

Click to enlarge.

The blog has conspicuously been on hiatus for a number of months thanks to the logistical difficulties of um, not having a computer.

But I’m back.

This time around, I decided to delve into the cultural realms of literature & film for a short list of some of the most recognizable narrative examples of a character’s descent into madness. Why a list, you ask?

I’ll tell you.

1.) When taking on a subject as ambiguous and malleable as narrative themes, an informal list seems the best choice. It’s not as definitive, but it strives to be an objective appraisal of the subjective.

2.) Lists welcome dialogue in a way that a purely informative graphic doesn’t; I’m hoping visitors will read this and want to discuss, comment, debate, and most importantly, well… that’s part of the next point.

3.) Informal lists like this one are meant to be expanded. This is a very short list of a very common narrative theme (I conspicuously went with the most culturally recognizable ones), so you’d better feel the need to mention the ones you feel should make the more expansive list of which this is obviously a small selection.

4.) This is the internet. The internet loves lists. This is a list.

COMING SOON: I’ll be tracking my progress with a much larger, much more physical infographic map of the city of Atlanta actually commissioned by the city through the Art on the Atlanta BeltLine project!

atlanta, squared

You’re gonna definitely wanna use zoom on this one, kids.

Just a quick exercise in data visualization in the vein of David McCandless, premier infographicist. This graphic is the first of what I hope to be many more that fulfill two goals: the inclusion of straightforward visualization of numerical data, as opposed to the usual facts & figures which have decorated this page so far: and the ability to generate simple but effective visuals that can be generated more quickly than and in between those same, more elaborate, graphics I’ve been doing. Instead of taking a month or more, for instance, I completed the research and design of this particular one in about 24 hours (not total; I literally had this idea yesterday). I will also probably continue to add new data to this one (for instance, oh, I didn’t put in any sports arenas or whatever [edit: now I have!]).

As to what you’re actually seeing, I’ve taken the acreage of several Atlanta landmarks, parks, and neighborhoods and condensed them into simple squares for easy comparison, with the colors indicating the various categories. I almost included Stone Mountain Park and Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, but they are HUGE. Stone Mountain, for instance, is about five times the size of this graph. The airport is, seriously, even bigger. It is a big airport.

everything dies; but you know, at different times

Click to zoom, why don’t you.

your eight-legged friends wish you’d give them some credit

These guys are found in households across North America, but don’t fret. If you’re not poking them repeatedly or trying to put tiny little spider clothes on them, they’ll probably leave you alone, all the while consuming the true pests around the house.

Click to zoom, but I’m sure you’ve figured that out already:

Check out this video to see a garden spider in action, mummifying a Japanese beetle faster than you can read this sentence:

Also, wolf spiders are probably better mothers than yours: