Southold, NY
July 4, 2010

This is my friend Tahir Hemphill’s project.  He is now a resident at Eyebeam in NYC developing the project further.  Here’s the description of the project:

The Hip-Hop Word Count (HHWC) is a searchable ethnographic database built from the lyrics of over 40,000 Hip-Hop songs from 1979 to present day. The database is the heart of an online analysis tool that generates textual and quantified reports on searched phrases, syntax, memes and socio-political ideas.

The database is now being built and visualizations of the data are beginning to emerge, the first ones shown last week at Eyebeam Open Studios.  It’s an exciting prospect to imagine what will crystallize from so many songs and artists creating within hip-hop.  Below are some early releases from the project:

A gallery of results from a “rubric that estimates the education level needed to understand each rhyme as well as, rates the artistic sophistication employed through the metaphors, similes, cultural references, consonantal/vocalic alliteration and overall pattern of each rhyme.”:

From Jay Z’s body of work:

Here is the link to the first Rap Data Pack™ we have released. It includes the raw data from Hov’s complete body of work: word count, readability, release dates, Geo Codes, etc..

Keep checking in at Tahir’s Staple Crops site to stay abreast as the project develops.

“iheart times square” was a recent public arts proposal for installation in Times Square, as part of the Renewable Times Square project.  Architect Ceren Bingol assisted the creation of the proposal.  The following is an abstract of the project:

The words of “iheart times square” explore mutable texts as interactive poetry. An original poem is written; its words are split apart and painted on the ground as large-scale standalone objects. The location of the words invite the visitors to either find the intended flow of the poem or discover meaning based on the random flow of their travel.

Like love, iheart knows no boundaries. Text is picture, picture is text; the path is the destination. The words and symbols of “iheart times square” shift in scale from the local to the universal, i.e. the words “cross roads” symbolize both the physical nature of the street grid as well as the melting pot of diverse visitors at Times Square. The symbols also vary in scale to address multiple pedestrian flows and heights by which viewers may view the Broadway plazas.

The poem I wrote to be painted:

iheart
standing here
at the crossroads of the world
a square of electric aspiration
where the world is a screen
an extended american dream
spectacular commerce of a people
in a new agora
holding the beacon of hope
a torch of imprisoned light
yearning to be free
in a land where
love is the common currency
out of many
we are one
[sic]

These small thumbnails below are clickable, showing the rest of the visual proposal:

The winning proposal is an infographic, a safe bet in public art these days.  Proposed by Molly Dilworth, the project will show infrared satellite data of Manhattan in shades of blue.  Where huge abstract sculptures dot the modernist public art landscape, today we see many projects featuring visually appealing interpretations of contemporary datasets.  The outlined twist is that it’s supposed to look like a river in Times Square and keep it cool.

———-

To view the overall iheart project, click here.

To view Ceren Bingol’s works and blog, click here.

June 10, 2010
The third intervention in an ongoing series at the Witzenhausen Gallery in Chelsea, NYC.
Created and written by [sic]

Original Poem:

am i transformed?
painted and recombined
frozen by contact with capital
the blood of the earth
on my hands
is this hope © ?
how about change
that promise
that universal constant
freedom
to break the chains
standing up
to keep hope alive

———–

On display at Witzenhausen Gallery until September 2010:

tuesday to saturday 11 am – 6 pm or by appointment 

547 west 27th street
suite 530, 5th floor
click for map

t. +1 (212) 239 1124 

www.witzenhausengallery.nl

thanks to the RE/mix festival for inspiration and venue for the original “am i transformed?” diptych paintings

www.remixedmedia.org

“Obamage” by [sic]

To download the full image (2.3MB JPEG)

Or download the obamage.zip file (2.3MB zipped JPG)

For more information and pictures on this mural + the overall iheart project,  check out the website.

For more information and pictures on this mural + the overall iheart project,  check out the website.

Wow. Blu’s use of structure and location is amazing. Worth viewing William Kentridge in context.

Here’s a link to Blu’s website.

taken with old school iphone version 1