Blink (2007) by George Legrady [Full wall projection, dimensions variable; 1 4000 lumens (or brighter) digital projector and computer] - Blink consists of a matrix of eyes that open and close based on their neighbor’s behaviors. Each eye’s decision is dependent on statistically evaluating what its neighbor eyes are doing, dynamically calculated in realtime. The process goes back and forth between states of stability where all eyes try to be like their neighbors, and states of transitional disruption where the eyes look at their neighbors but can’t fully decide if they should be like them or not. The status of the overall image at any given moment in time is a consequence of the various stages of each eyes’ individual behaviors, and therefore guarantees a statistically extreme low possibility that the image will fully repeat itself.

George Legrady, Professor of Interactive Media at the University of California, Santa Barbara holds a joint appointment in the Media Arts & Technology graduate program and the department of Art. His current research addresses data collection, data processing methodologies and data visualization presented simultaneously in interactive installations and the internet. The projects make use of self-organizing systems and algorithmically generated visualizations. He has integrated digital processes into his artistic work since the mid-1980’s, investigating 2 different directions: methodologies to address the organization of cultural data, and new forms of visualization coming out of algorithmic processes.

Pockets Full of Memories consists of the public contributing data (an image of an object and semantic descriptors) to a database whose data is visually organized by the Kohonen self-organizing mapping algorithm in a 2Dimensionl map. The algorithm basically looks at all the data and continuously organizes them in a 2D space so that every object is surrounded by others of similar semantic attributes until order is achieved at the local and global state. The exhibition has been presented in Paris, Rotterdam, Linz, Budapest, Helsinki, and Manchester between 2001-2005. The accumulation of collected data at these exhibitions has become a subject of study in itself. We are currently analyzing what kinds of data has been collected and how everyday objects such as cellphones, notebooks, keys, etc. differ in their cultural descriptions at each of the venues and how these differences can best be expressed visually.

Making Visible the Invisible is a commission for the new prestigious Seattle Public Library, by the internationally renown architect Rem Koolhaas. The project consists of analyzing and then visually mapping on a daily basis changes in what the public is reading, tracked through the circulation of books going in and out of the library. These are to be presented on 6 horizontally positioned plasma screens in the main “Mixing Chamber” research room.

Global Collaborative Visual Mapping Archive (GCVMA) focuses on cellphone transmission visualized as a dynamically changing 3D architectural structure. Research addresses methods of wireless cellular technological telecommunications devices, methods of data assembly such as self-organizing, neural-net, networks models, swarm intelligence algorithms, and the visual interface by which the images and their data are to be accessed and interacted with.