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The term “data visualization” supposes that data is not already visible but must be made so; for this reason, the mechanisms of representation, the means of communication, and the protocols of that transmission become instrumental in their depictions.  It is no secret that with information comes bias, and ideological taint, and to that end, each mode of visualization may cast a shadow of some persuasion. Historically, we have witnessed the vicissitudes of the emergence of the architect in relation to the instruments of the discipline: especially in the arena of measure and projection. At the same time, the descriptions they have made possible are part of a process of abstraction, distortion, and tinting, as made visible through the orthogonal, oblique or conical projections, each in their own way giving weight to varied visions.

It is a rare case where these media come into confluence, as their individual agencies give innate emphasis to certain tropes that reinforce their strengths: from the monocular conical projections of Masaccio to the worm’s eye bias of the Choisy oblique projections, all manifest a revelation that is routed through the salient quality of a particular means of representation. It is maybe only the cinematic that captures the dynamic connection between these media, sometimes in the most devious of means.  The dolly shots of Spike Lee and their control of the camera lens is one example where the measures of constraint are methodically shifted to radical results, but only potent through an animate format.

Kinetic Measures undertakes such an analysis of the Storefront for Art and Architecture. It begins by orthogonally orienting the Storefront, axially aligning its façade parallel to the picture plane as a descriptive means of projecting the dimensional criteria of the elevation and the traces of structural and mechanical motive. Using transitions within the limits of planar projection to approximate the conditions of conical perspective, different stages of the animated drawing enable different alignments between projection and architecture. The kinetic medium of animation is a practice used to produce a biased way of seeing—from the analytical to the experiential. Agency in this case, derived through specific alignments between medium and subject, allows for a temporal and deliberate playing of projection drawing, an instrument for giving value to architecture and the city through measure.

Read the New York Times Review here.

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