Creative / Visual

MURMURATIONS

A series of data visualizations featuring 100,000 (and counting) public Instagram images.


Murmurations is a series of ‘collective self-portraits’: abstract visualizations inspired by flocking patterns found in nature.

Comprised entirely of selfies, the series explores how social media is influencing behavior and the large-scale patterns that emerge in society despite an emphasis on individualism. The series introduces questions around the idea of self ‘tagging’ — both through language (hashtagging) and geolocation — and explores the compulsion humans feel to leave traces of themselves.

The forced grouping of these images highlights their extreme similarities, supporting the idea that human populations will always move toward conformity, no matter how individualistic each unique member imagines themselves. Trying to be unique creates patterns of likeness, and observing these patterns may offer new ways of understanding ourselves.










Trying to be unique creates patterns of likeness. 
ROLE: Creative Concept & Direction; Data Visualization; Installation & Exhibition


Postscript / 
Murmurations #23: 10,000 selfies (with a pink wall in Los Angeles) was shortlisted for the 2020 Aesthetica Art Prize and is on view at the York Art Gallery through February 2021. 

Murmurations #22: 5,000 selfies (with wings) will be exhibited at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum as part of the de Young Open. (Exhibition dates TBD.)




San Francisco, Calif.
2020