BOOM, BAM Baby!

MPM35 - Final Presentation

2009-12-14T19:22:00.000-08:00

This is the documentation for my final project

Check it out
enjoy!

www.mpm35missing.tumblr.com

MPM35 - Changing Ideas

2009-12-14T17:58:00.000-08:00

Instead of having the sheets standing, I've decided it hang them from the ceiling. I want this to have a very clean and simple look. There will still be enough space inbetween each sheet so viewers are still able to walk inbetween each set of data. I have decided to use the Lexan sheets from Active Surplus.to find However still not being able to find a printing shop to print on my 3x3 sheets.

MPM35 - A trip to Active Surplus

2009-12-14T17:23:00.000-08:00

I found a new material to work with on my trip to Active surplus. It's called Lexan. It was affordable and there was a lot in stock, so I took advantage and bought 10 sheets. The pieces are about 3 x 3 which I feel are large enough to create the effect I want. However, they are flimsey (as u can see by the way im bending it in the picture) and I am thinking about creating a border out of a thicker plastic so that they can stand like in my previous sketch.

I still haven't figured out what I will use to represent each child missing. Since it will be a large number I have been looking around printing shops, but no one seems to be able to print that large on the sheets that I have.

MPM35 - Changing Ideas

2009-12-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

After my presentation, I got to thinking about the different ways I might be able to represent my data still using the plexiglass.

Some new sketches...

The idea is to have large standing pieces of plexiglass with the same effect of the density graph in my prototype. Viewers would be able to around each representation and get a clear view of each year.

I searched mostly hardware stores (Home Depot, Roma, Canadian Tire...) only to find that the large pieces of plexiglass range in cost from $50-100. Knowing that I want to create atleast 5, this is already not going to work out.

MPM35 Prototype

2009-11-22T16:43:00.001-08:00

Single slide containing information of abducted children for one year.

Prototype of the final project.

After finishing my sketches and creating a prototype there are already things I found that I would want to change.

1. The wood pieces are a little too distracting. I might use something transparent instead so that it is less visible.

2. Possibly different colours for every year instead of the same blue and pink.

3. Also, depending on my final numbers, instead of 1 person representing 1 person I may have to have each person representing a larger number like 10.

I'm still unsure about how I will be creating the small figures. Stickers perhaps?

I really wanted to use paint. I had an idea to make it a little more abstract and use brushes strokes of pink or blue to represent the children.

DATA SOURCES

here are some of the links where I am beginning to collect my data from.

http://www.gdsourcing.com/works/Missing.htm

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/missingchildren/childmurders.html

http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/Collection-R/Statcan/85-002-XIE/0029885-002-XIE.pdf

http://kidsearchnetwork.blogspot.com/2005/12/missing-children-statistics.html

http://www.missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=2810

MPM35 - IDEAS

2009-11-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

IDEA #1

IDEA #2

For my final project for MPM35 I am almost positive I have decided to go with my 1st idea; that is to collect data of missing children from 5-6 years (ex. collect data from 2001,2002,2003,2004 and 2005). I will display this data on plastic transparent sheets showing the number of boys and girls abducted within that specific year. The sheets will be layered as you can see in the photo above so that as each year gets added on, the past years become less visible, and eventually forgotten; disappearing into the crowded images of boys and girls.

My second idea was to make a map of canada and map out one year of abductions in Canada. This map will show the number of children and the cause of their dissapperance in every province. Everything will be plotted on the map using images and a legend will be provided to explain the significance of each image which will represent a number of children and the cause of disapperance.

The images above will help you get a clearer picture of the kind of project I am trying to attempt

"Mapping 31 Days in Iraq"

2009-11-07T19:20:00.000-08:00

“Mapping 31 Days in Iraq” was developed by Adriana Lins de Albuquerque, a doctoral student in political science at Columbia University, and by Adriana Cheng, a graphic designer at Mgmt. Design in Brooklyn. It is a map of more than 800 people, soldiers, security officers and civilians killed as a result of the insurgency in Iraq in January 2006. This map was created based on the data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and news reports, showing the dates, locations and circumstance of deaths for the first month of the year.

This map, although taken from 2006, is still very relevant to today’s problem in Iraq. It made me think about the thousands of bodies that have been accumulated up until now, and what this map would look like if the data had been updated with every body count up to November 2009.
I thought it was interesting the way all the people were equalized by having very similar figures so when looking at the map from afar it is difficult to depict whether they are male or female, civilian or soldier; every body is seen as one person.

This collection of data relates to other works such as Chris Jordan’s statistical portraits which gather a particular set of information and statistics and creatively graphs the information in a way which leaves the viewer with a better understanding of the situation and/or problem that is being depicted.

MPM35 - Project Proposal

2009-10-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

It is normal for me to grab a newspaper before every trip downtown Toronto, or to drive behind a truck, or even pass by a street post with a piece of white paper with two of the most horrifying words, “Missing Child”. It becomes frightening how normal it is to see a missing ad for a child and then how quickly those children are forgotten. When a child first goes missing, the police, media, and community are involved to help the grieving family search for their child. As time goes on, the involvement slowly decreases and leaves the family to continue searching alone.
The data project that I want to create is going to be based on missing children in Canada. It is something I feel that people read about and feel empathy, but not something people take the time to look into and become aware of. I was inspired by Chris Jordan’s statistical portraits in which he provides Americans with statistics from their own society that people were never aware of, or never took the time to recognize. These stats are everyday occurrences and problems that go unnoticed until he brings them to the people’s attention. This is the same effect I want to create with my research.
I plan to collect my data from various resourceful missing children sites which consist of statistics of missing children in Canada. I will be collecting data from 1990-2009 which will include numerous missing children cases; missing and found boy and girls. It will also be split into other categories about reasons for disappearance. For example, stranger abduction, parental abduction, runaway, unknown, wandered off, accidental, and other. I want to include names and photos of all the children I find during my research and organize them on some kind of graph according to gender, year of disappearance, and a reason for disappearance.
Through this project and my statistics found, I hope to raise awareness of the current situation with missing children in Canada.

MPM35 - Interactive Self Portrait

2009-10-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

For my interactive self portrait, I decided to create a small video player showing my personal hobbies and interests. There are seven links which are connected to seven different videos taken from www.youtube.com which I felt best represented the different hobbies or interests I was trying to portray. The viewer should be able to easily connect the images, videos, and personality traits. The categories i chose to incorporate were fashion, food, music, soccer, comedy, photography and television.

I created the Flash player using Adobe Flash, which at first was challenging, but I managed to create something a long the lines of what I originally had imagined. This was only one of my challenges during this process. My biggest challenge was trying to narrow down my options for the data I wanted to collect about myself. The idea for the seven links was to keep it simple yet give as much information to the viewer about me.

I hope to further develop this work and create a more complex piece with more links and my own recorded videos. Possibly create a larger chart with a list of things I absolutely love and in contrast, the things I absolutely hate.

Assignment #1 - Many eyes

2009-09-25T19:42:00.000-07:00

What's Most Important About Your Child's School Experience?

The graph on the right is a visualization of the responses to a parent survey question that asked what was most important about your child's education. The graph used a Wordle gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. In this case we see that 'learning', 'environment', and 'learn' seem to be the most popular words used in the data collected. I decided to use the data and present it in a different form called Phrase Net which displays network of related words and ideas. I found that Phrase Net did not give a as good of an idea as to what parents felt was more important for their children in school.

Percentage of students in grades 9 - 12 who reported carrying a weapon (by race)

I feel that the first graph on the left is easier to read and more accurate compared to the circle graph. On the first graph the lines are side by side easily showing the increases and decreases in the data. The circle graph is more difficult to read because with every year there is a different graph created which doesn't allow you to compare percentages side by side. You would find yourself have to alternate back and fourth.

Post Secrets

http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations.post-secret

This is a collection of random anonymous secrest from 'post secret' blog site. Secrets that people hide from family, friends, loved ones, and even strangers. This data set will point out the most common topic of secrest and what most people don't want anyone else to know.

2009-09-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

hey guys