Fast Facts
George Legrady artwork at The Seattle Public Library’s Central Library
www.spl.org
Artist George
Legrady, a professor
of interactive media
at the University of
California, Santa
Barbara, created the
electronic artwork
called, “Making Visible
the Invisible: What
the Community is
Reading” located in
the Charles Simonyi
George Legrady
Mixing Chamber on
Level 5. The project
presents different ways of analyzing and visually mapping
check-out data from the Central Library.
The installation consists of six large liquid crystal display
(LCD) screens that run horizontally in a glass wall above
a librarian reference desk. Three computers power the six
screens.
The 19,500-square-foot Mixing Chamber, the Library’s
“trading floor for information,” is dedicated to
information retrieval and computer research.
Like a stock exchange ticker – but using Library data
received each hour from the Central Library’s Information
Technology department – four electronically animated
“visualizations” float across the six screens. Each
visualization lasts between one to six minutes.
“The concept is to try to show what the community
is thinking based on the flow of books leaving the
library,” Legrady explained. “The visualizations show
what people are reading.” Seattle art critic Gary Faigin
called it “a popular focal point and a civic self-portrait, a
fitting centerpiece for a building that is all about access,
transparency, collectivity and connection.”
1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle, WA 98104
“Vital Statistics”
The first visualization is titled “Vital Statistics”
and displays running totals from various categories of
materials – books, DVDs, CDs and videos – that patrons
have checked out both within the past hour and for
the day. Each of the six screens features running totals
from the various categories. The background color of the
visualization changes throughout the day to visually note
the passage of time.
“Floating Titles”
The second visualization is called “Floating Titles” and
consists of the titles of books and other items patrons
have checked out in the past hour. The titles enter the
screens from the far right and slowly move toward the
left until an entire hour’s worth of materials have passed
by. Book titles are red and DVDs, CDs and videos are
green. Items checked out at the same time are close to
each other. The vertical location of an item on the screen
is determined by its Dewey Decimal number, with low
Dewey Decimal numbers near the top and high Dewey
Decimal numbers at the bottom.
“Dewey Dot Matrix Rain”
The third visualization is called “Dewey Dot Matrix
Rain” and shows the titles divided into Dewey
classifications from 000 to 999. Titles checked out come
on the screen in two ways. Titles with Dewey Decimal
numbers pop on-screen at their Dewey location. The titles
of non-Dewey items, such as fiction books, float down
the screen like falling rain. Books are red and DVDs, CDs
and videos are green. By the end of the animation, the
bars are color-coded to provide an overview as to which
Dewey Decimal categories received the most circulation.
“Keyword Map Attack”
The fourth visualization, “Keyword Map Attack,”
positions and colors keywords of checked-out titles by the
average of their Dewey subcategories links. White lines
move across the screen, connecting the keywords to the
classification of the books they came from.
This project was developed over a two-year period
with help from Rama Hoetzlein and Mark Zifchock,
who provided technical design, data processing and
production assistance; Andreas Schlegel, who provided
Web design, data analysis and visual research; and
August Black, who did the system design, data analysis
and visual studies.
“Making Visible the Invisible” is one of several
permanent works of art approved by The Seattle
Public Library board of trustees as part of the “Library
Unbound” series.
A portion of Legrady’s artwork was funded by the
Committee of 33, a local non-profit group of women
who fund good works in public art, landscaping and
streetscape improvements.
George Legrady has been creating interactive digital
media installations and projects since the early 1990s. He
is best known for his projects, “Pockets Full of Memories”
(2001), commissioned by the Centre Pompidou, Paris;
“Slippery Traces” (1996), published by the ZKM Center
for Media & Technology Museum in Karlsruhe, Germany;
and the award-winning “Anecdoted Archive from the
Cold War” (1993).
Learn more about Legrady and “Making Visible the
Invisible,” by visiting www.georgelegrady.com.