05 June 2015

Dear Data Inspiration

When I wrote about the Dear Data snail mail project, I did not expect to receive any letter inspired by it...!


Yes: written (?) on the back (the front, actually) of this envelope sent by Phillip (the USA) is not Alien code. These strange signs are a way to represent some data gathered by the sender during a crazy long week. The data are related to his mail art activities: the time (dark grey circles), the activity (coloured lines) and the person/people (coloured points). By the way: I am the turquoise point.


Also published in his blog.

5 comments:

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    1. The data gathering is incredible, and also the representation. I think I would never have the patience to do something like that...

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  2. That looks nice! First I thought it an ancient alphabet / handwriting, but indeed now that I read the story behind it is clear it is a diary, log book!
    Am I right when thinking each line represents one day of the week?
    If so, then I am wondering why each day starts with a snow flake like star, and why there is an 8th snowflake-like-star in the 6th row.
    The only thing which really seems mysterious to me is: why are you / is Eva a turquoise point, instead of orange? :-)
    Anyhow, I love to see all these small signs, and hope there will be a possibility to get the key one day, to 'read' it by ourselves :-)

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    Replies
    1. I have the key, but I didn't publish all the details because I thought it would be too personal. The funny thing is that the sender now hasn't the key, as he didn't made a copy! :)

      That isn't written on the key sheet, but I do believe that every row is a day, as you said. The grey lines represent the time. Every 3-legs star is "3 hours of no activity". So the snow flake stars are "6 hours of no activity".

      There is another thing even more mysterious: you are the dark green point :D

      See what Phillip wrote himself about this work: http://goo.gl/Zvojtr

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    2. It was my original intent for every day to be one line, but the first day, monday, goes over a little bit into line 2.

      There is a main art break on saturday night when i was out having fun, then checked in before I went to sleep early sunday morning. So the 'days' are not really midnight to midnight, but end with the last mail art activity of the day, then start with the hours I was inactive due to sleeping (except Tuesday's line, which has the last few hours of monday evening.

      :)

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Thank you for coming. All your comments make me extremely happy.