Project Brief

This task invites a deep exploration of portraiture and self-representation in the age of quantification.

Create a series of images/videos that represent insights from a dataset about yourself. You may use pre-existing data (Such as your email archive, fitness tracker data, etc) or create a new system specifically for collecting data about an aspect of your life. Your visualization is a tool you are building to help you answer a question about yourself. You may combine multiple sources of data to make interesting comparisons.

Project Description

This was a difficult project to begin. I wasn’t sure what kind of data I would collect about myself. When doing a personal exploration, I hit upon the number of times I have moved from birth and forward. It was a staggering number especially considering my family isn’t in the military. I have lived a pretty nomadic existence. Often moving with a suitcase or a carload of stuff. Which makes the idea of home a little fleeting. 

For this assignment, I chose to picture bits and pieces of some of the homes I have lived in over the years. I only have photos for 16 of these (for now) but need to add another 16 or so. I plan on doing some travelling this summer to some of these places and adding to my collection of images. These “bits and pieces” from some of these homes are all I can remember. Some have a bigger and bolder memory for me. 

The setup for this assignment reminds me of David Hockney’s ‘joiners,’ the photo collages he used to capture moments in time from various perspectives. I was also inspired by the architectural collages of Sweden-based artist Anastasia Savinova.