Today is a visualisation software for mobile phones which illustrates mobile communication (above is a sample visualisation and below the key to understanding the visualisation).

It sits on the periphery of the machine, monitoring our connectivity through the number and type of calls we receive, subtly displaying them back to us, in the form of a generative graphic. Here, the visual result is a figurative and seemingly abstract picture – the story of your day. Some days will be really colourful and wired, others quieter and more reflective, either way the resulting visuals will always be personal, unrepeatable and unique.

I don’t have much interest in software which graphs information in abstract ways simply because I’m unsure what that is trying to achieve. Is it information design (the key suggests this is)? If so does the abstraction of information detract from the communication of the information and the understanding that should enable. Is it art? If so what is it’s purpose as art, how does it present a set of ideas as understood by the artist. Or is it blurring the boundaries between the two and to what end? What’s interesting here is the potential of taking latent information about the use of a mobile phone and then making it do something.

Originally seen on Networked Performance and information aesthetics.