"Form follows data"

July 15, 2005 7:55 PM

Information Aestheticsis a weblog of experiments in visualization: a power cord that glows as one draws power, a crocheted Lorenz manifold, a live display of a computer thinking about chess, a color-changing flower that detects nearby wifi. To be sure, there are lots of old favorites here but probably some new ones as well.
posted by fatllama (12 comments total)

Good post! I especially like the chess game.
posted by swift at 8:51 PM on July 15, 2005

Added. I've seen these before, but I appreciate someone trying to log them. Thanks.
posted by jscott at 8:58 PM on July 15, 2005

The power cord idea is an excellent line of thinking. I think gadgets would be a lot more intuitive and understandable if their functions could be represented like that. Imagine if something similar could be done with the components in, say, a car engine? It would make repairs a lot easier and could probably signal you not to touch things that would burn and/or severely injure you.
posted by invitapriore at 9:09 PM on July 15, 2005

How Tuftean!
posted by Gyan at 9:13 PM on July 15, 2005

Water-temp dislaying faucet. I love stuff like this.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:53 PM on July 15, 2005

Whoops. That's on the front page of your linked blog. Bad wonderchicken!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:54 PM on July 15, 2005

Regarding the untitled project, the world would be so much prettier without all this text everywhere. :-(
posted by grouse at 6:06 AM on July 16, 2005

I want thermochromic tiles in my living room.

Beautiful post!
posted by leapingsheep at 6:35 AM on July 16, 2005

Grouse, you might be interested in the Vertabrain system from Marshall Brain's story "Manna." This system, neurally implanted, would put an interface over the world. One character has Vertabrain overlay arrows to point wherever she needs to go. Since every citizen has an interface like this, there are no directional signs. They're in a certain sort of post-scarcity economy as well, so there are no ads.
posted by NickDouglas at 9:53 AM on July 16, 2005

Grr, why don't the archives have images? That renders them useless.
posted by NickDouglas at 10:02 AM on July 16, 2005

Thanks, NickDouglas.
posted by grouse at 10:44 AM on July 16, 2005

Excellent post, thanks.

And much of this stuff seems so useful (like the glowing power cord or the tap water temperature indicator) that one almost feels like getting a glimpse of the not-too-distant future.
posted by sour cream at 12:00 PM on July 16, 2005