Information Design (sometimes called infoporn if you’re devious) are some popular things these days. Take the famous “cancer subway map” shown above, or look at the The New York Times, who regularly feature fantastic examples of the form, charts that are not only designed beautifully but are informative and fun, too.  There’s even a site featuring some bloopers that happened while working on some of them.

All of these examples, plus countless others all over the internet (like the data presentation-as-movie-poster we featured here) hew to one specific purpose: compile data into various charts, graphs, or even just basic numbers. Design beautifully. Present to public.

What got me thinking about the popularity and formulas of infographics is a new exhibition currently running through April 12th at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, which has much of the same underlying philosophy: it uses data to create art, only instead of presenting it as attractive charts and graphs, it features actual art installations that were ‘compiled’ through the use of various types of raw data.

It’s a fresh idea very much in line with the zeitgeist: harnessing the massive amounts of free data available online and organizing it in such a way that its conclusions are displayed not as numerical tables but pieces designed for contemplation. While all art is a collection and re-interpretation of data (visual, aural, etc, filtered through the eyes and brain of the artist), I’m unaware of a previous exhibition taking the accumulation and presentation of raw information so literally.

Featured in the exhibition are plenty of works from the well-known Aaron Koblin, including his “laser ranging system” last seen in Radiohead’s House of Cards video, plus his project called “Ten Thousand Cents“, where 10,000 online users (all anonymous) contributed to a master drawing of a $100 bill. If you click on any of the 10,000 portions of the bill, you can see a division between the original scan and an animation of the drawn re-creation. While the final result is, well, what you’d expect (a slightly iffy $100 bill), the fact that as an artwork, and has 10,000 anonymous artists and all the steps they took in its creation, is fascinating use of the ‘hive mind’.

Also featured in the exhibition is the grandfather of all great data-posters, by Charles Joseph Minard: Napoleon’s March to Moscow. This and other works like it (it was done in 1869) are the direct inspiration behind the great poster work at sites like historyshots: presenting data in an large, easily-digested, arresting, and beautiful format.

There’s plenty of art out there that uses raw data in various ways: various contemporary installations have been doing it for some time, and we might even make the argument that certain memorials function as great artworks, too. I’m thinking mainly of Maya Lin’s Vietnam memorial, which, while admirably serving its primary function as a memorial to the dead, also works stunningly well on an aesthetic level, taking the chronological names of the war dead and displaying them in a unique fashion.

Most of today’s exhibits strive for a higher level of automation and calculation (in the computerized sense of the word).

This exhibit reminds me of another piece of data-art that came from Flickr some months ago, when they took geo-coded tags from all the people who tag the location where they took a photo (or have a camera that does it for them), and created a series of continental maps based on those co-ordinates. The results were remarkably accurate, and all generated entirely from photographic metadata.

It’s not so hard to envision dozens of future projects along the same lines, pulling raw data from a variety of sources and going beyond just a clean API integration, taking it into a completely unexpected space where the data functions as the primary creator behind a piece of art. This is the ultimate in “Container Art”, in that the real artistry is in the intake and manipulation of otherwise random or unadulterated data.

Something less automatic but no less enjoyable: this project putting two years’ of Twittering into a book, which is plenty interesting on its own, and mines a data source for a type of journal or log you simply are not going to see anywhere else. This is another example of raw data being transformed into a strangely personal kind of art. People complain that no one keeps journals anymore (wait, do they?), but here we have exactly that. You just have to move it off your computer and onto some paper.

2006 saw the launch of Illustrative, a new festival/exhibition in Berlin that celebrates illustration and graphic art. Having taken place this year in Zurich between the 18th and 26th of October, it drew 35 different artists, and showcased over 400 works.

Its main thrust is described as “documenting the influence of illustration and graphic arts on other disciplines like book illustration, fashion and textile-arts, pottery, and animated movies.” The point is to trace how illustration and graphic art feature in, or are essential parts of, the many facets of ‘contemporary art’.

What this really means is you’re getting a ton of great illustration gathered all in one place. And as an excellent sideline, the exhibition hosts a Young Illustrators Award, in three separate categories that include Illustration, Book Art, and Animation.

A funny thing: even though I’m writing on design all the time, I’m still often in the dark when it comes to the genre terms “illustration” and “graphic art”. That’s fine: part of the point of their recent resurgence is the inability to pin contemporary illustration down into one, specific category, as was possible 100 years ago.

Take a look at this interview with Pascal Johanssen, one of the two Berlin-based curators of Illustrative, who outlines what “contemporary illustrative art” means to him:

It’s a new art movement. Unlike classic illustration it is a mix of influences from comic art, graffiti, fashion, advertisement, set design for computer games or animation. This form of illustrative art is marked by very different creative impulses and thus can be design or art.

He also describes the fundamental differences between what he sees as the previous generation of illustrators and today’s. I’ve never really thought about things in these terms before:

The parent generation for me is represented by illustrators like Tomi Ungerer. These have been willful, charismatic drawers. They were close to political caricatures, which was in accordance with the common operational fields of illustration back then. Today´s illustrators are mainly avant-garde regarding innovative means of design.

And finally, he’s asked in which direction illustration is moving at the moment. His answer is probably prescient, but it’s strange–I’ve been hearing a version of this answer, across several disciplines, for some time now. Read on:

Game Art will come up. This will be an art genre which will not only copy the aesthetics of computer games, like Eboy, but uses the graphical, narrative and technological means emerging from computer games and making them possible. Something new will develop in this field.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read that games are the new, growing, soon-to-be-fundamental frontier for: advertising, literature, interactive experience, socialization, social networking, and entertainment in general. No one actually knows if it’ll happen, but for the moment I see games as still, essentially, games.

Yeah, there are massive networks like World of Warcraft. There are games everyone in the world plays, like Grand Theft Auto 4. There are games like The Sims 2. But they’re still just games. There are still stores that sell only video games, all staffed by the same 5 dudes that ran them when I was 10. Or at least it seems that way.

I’ll save a further exploration of that subject for another day, but it strikes me that Johannson’s answer here is actually not overblown like many of the video-games-are-taking-over-all-media claims: the area in which games and art will strongly converge might indeed be one where the very facility of young designers with video games (and the technologial means that bring them about) could actually create an entirely new field of art, and a big one at that. Just a prediction.

One can’t miss event during the exhibiton–especially for anyone interested in vintage art or just wonderfully detailed design–was Roman Bittner’s talk on his “Ancient Cities of Tomorrow” series. These are e-boy like illustrations taken to another level and really, really captivating. Check out his studio here.

Anyway, if you were lucky enough to be wandering around Zurich in October, staring at mountains and drinking their water straight from the clean, fresh rivers, hopefully you caught up with Illustrative.

Once again MAKE Magazine turns us on to something fantastic: the sculpture of Susy Oliveira. I have to say I haven’t seen anything like this before, and there is something, like the original MAKE poster said, that reminds me of the dead bodies in various video games. While that’s just a fleeting reference–Oliveira is an new Canadian artist doing work across several fields, and this is just one of them–it’s the one that caught my attention.

What is it about taking computer-inspired shapes and forms, like the constrictions of polygons, and pulling them out into the open world? Why is this fascinating? Art historians (and I am definitely not one of them) could insert these works somewhere along the “history of sculpture” timeline, tracing influences of certain movements without ever touching the computerized aspect of it. But that very connection to computerization is what makes all the difference: these are photos, printed out and sculpted on top of foam in such a way that they resemble the simplistic polygons of the first three-dimensional games (think Virtua Fighter).

What I’d really love to do is have the chance to see this work in person, where I could walk around it and see it from varying angles, which is obviously a large part of the work’s significance: each piece of the surface has a series of separate angles created by the polygons, which make even something as simple as a pair of jeans seem strange and unreal.

The appeal of all these projects still gets me thinking: does their appeal come solely from their nods to computer-based design? Game designers had to use primitive, obvious polygons during the initial stages of 3d-game design, and 8-bit games were constrained into using the pixel as building block. Now, are the children who grew up with those generations clamouring for artistic representations of those childhood touchstones in a more mature context?

Well, that’s one way of putting it, and at the moment that’s how I approach these things at first–they hit a series of nostalgic buttons, and if the art can remain interesting beyond that, then I can cast any nods to a pre-existing, even video-game related concept aside and look for more. And there seems to be plenty here.

To me, most street art wants to accomplish three little things that add up to the idea of ’shocking’ the viewer. The word shock isn’t entirely appropriate as it implies something drastic–’changing perspective’ is probably more appropriate but kind of boring, so whatever. ‘Shock’ it is. Anyway, according to me, the three things that all projects of this kind attempt to do are:

• presenting art where it’s least expected
• commenting on the use of public space
• being (or trying to be) extremely clever

Those generally add up to the possibility of ’shocking’ the passerby out of his/her normal sensibility or (if we want to start posturing) complacency, even.

Based on these criteria, I don’t exactly understand why Aakash Nihalani’s street art succeeds, but it does. His photography is great, his shapes are clean, clear, and fun. Maybe that’s it–the sense of fun that comes through in what he’s doing, which is really remarkably simple. It’s direct, well-photographed, and has a reasonably clear explanation by the artist as to what he thinks it is, and what he’s trying to do:

I’m not trying to push a certain highbrow logic or philosophy or purposefully communicate through the esoteric medium of art. I work instinctively, trying to follow my gut about the sensation of color and space, and have fun doing it.

On the ‘a-ha!’ scale, it’s about the same as when you were a kid and you first figured out that you could draw a two-dimensional square on a piece of paper, and then by adding some diagonal lines, make it into a three-dimensional object. The simplest thing in the world, which is probably why I like this stuff, because it’s a reference to that discovery in what’s already a multi-dimensional environment.

My street work consists mostly of isometric rectangles and squares. I selectively place these graphics around New York to highlight the unexpected contours and elegant geometry of the city itself. All execution of a piece is done on site with little to no planning.

Head over to his site for more quality work on display. His photography really does add a ton to the enjoyment of his work, it’s great stuff.

Amid much fanfare opens the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City’s Columbus Circle. Until 2002 this museum was called the American Craft Museum, but that name was too much glue-and-sparkles or old-furniture for a fickle youngster like me, and probably for most of the people who might be drawn towards what’s actually inside the building. Hence the re-branding.

Having just opened, they’ve launched their inaugural exhibition, called Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary. It’s a series of 50 exhibitions that refashion a bunch of materials into new pieces. From what I can gather this isn’t any kind of large-scale statement on recycling material or the terrible vagaries of consumption, which is a welcome approach. It’s far better to treat the show as art first, and allow the social implications of the work to rise up from the viewer’s response, rather than having it spelled out as an overarching (and thus slightly boring) theme.

But check out fine art critic Roberta Smith’s review of the show in the New York Times:

There is a simplistic political thrust to a lot of this work, but environmental sensitivity is mostly nil. Some questions for the artists here are: Thought about your carbon footprint lately? Are more iterations of this tired Surrealist idea needed? Are you really giving the objects you’re using a second life, or just enabling them to last longer and take up more space?

If I’m reading her right, she’s asking that any exhibit with a “simplistic political thrust” at least deal, using a modicum of subtlety, with a top political issue of the day. If you’re going to call your exhibit Second Lives and make other political points with it, at least say something smart about the environment, she suggests. The museum, on the other hand, says that “while the focus of the exhibition is neither on sustainability nor recycling, the works in the exhibition are a catalyst for thought and discussion about these issues.”

Now reading, talking, and doing things about consumption/carbon footprints/etc is a heavy, important thing for all of us to pay big amounts of attention to, but when art exhibitions are yoked into the service of environmental concerns as their primary raison-d’etre, something is lost in the process. Being virtuous and thinking morally about the environment are beautiful things, but I have yet to be convinced they’re ideal frameworks for an art exhibition. There’s still time to change my mind, but for now I like the museum’s subtle approach.

And besides, Smith’s final verdict? “I recommend a visit.”

Some of the more notable exhibits on show include:

Trinity: Grandma, Spike, Bubbles (2007) by American artists Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth. These custom chromed chandeliers are designed in traditional neoclassical form, but are made of hypodermic needles, gelatin capsules and Swarovski crystal which reflect drug culture themes. While seductive in their beauty, the chandeliers are a chilling reminder of a darker side of contemporary life.  (from the museum’s website; photo credit: Schroeder Romero)

There are also a couple that are just straight-up aesthetically pleasing to gawk at. They also both happen to be made of vinyl, which might explain my attraction. One is shown above–Paul Villinski’s My Back Pages, in which his records take off and fly away as a series of butterflies. It’s good. The other, “Sound Wave” by Jean Shin (check out the Times for the photo) is a giant wave molded out of old records.

If you’re in New York City soon, stop by–you’ll see a load of original design in a wonderful space. Smith says “the opening displays, it must be granted, reflect an institution that is wild with delight at having for the first time a real museum building of its very own.”

An additional note: the MAD acronym and entire re-branding campaign was done by the famous Pentagram agency, who have a great blog post on the big spread of work they’ve done for the launch.

I find myself wondering about contemporary art sometimes. Not so often, but every once in a while a little old-fashioned voice pops into my head–especially when I’m looking at a video installation or a conceptual piece–and suggests I could pull off something similar, bury it under enough pseudo-theory about the nature of space/blankness, and call it groundbreaking. It’s a bullshit idea, of course: just the same kind of conservative ‘verification process’ that wanted to be sure Picasso could paint detailed, measured, classical scenes before accepting the artistic merit of his more innovative work.

My silly ideas are sent even further down the river when contemporary artists are given the opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in a different medium, especially a traditional one with well-established boundaries. Ubiquitous American retailer The Gap has gone and done just that, commissioning 13 former winners of the Whitney Biennial to design a range of limited edition t-shirts.

H&M has been doing a similar thing for a while now, pulling in top fashion designers and having them create low-cost/high-fashion lines for the store, but Gap’s project is different–each designer isn’t from the fashion world, but actually a contemporary artist for whom clothes aren’t the norm.

Although most of the shirts seem to be sold out by now, they offer us a great look at the kind of art world genre-hopping we don’t normally see. While some artists seem born for at least some kind of t-shirt design (think the visual blasts and surface-is-everything aesthetic of Jeff Koons), others give me pause, or set me wondering how they can possibly translate any of their major themes to a t-shirt. Rirkrit Tiravanija’s exploration of the ’social role of the artist’ works great in a gallery, but splashed across your chest?

Flipping through the New Yorker recently and seeing the individual ads for each shirt, I was really taken aback by how successfully Gap and the artists have pulled this off. Mixing high concept art with a whitebread American clothes shop shouldn’t have worked, but it did. For a few weeks in May, it was possible to hit any big mall in any suburb in America and get a $30 t-shirt that would normally be sold in a select few Paris/NYC/London shops for ten times the price.

Share your thoughts on the shirts–have you seen better stuff on Threadless, or has each artist’s talent been successfully transposed? Leave your comments!