What.

Around the house, we refer to it as “The Project”, but it is truly a license for adventure, a bit of discernment, a lot of dream, and the ingredients for rejuvenation along the path less traveled. Despite the slightly ominous name, “The Project” actually consists of smaller (and much friendlier!) projects, each with a specific medium and set of goals.

The first project is a web-based community events listing. Living in Durham is an inspiration to all things interesting. A creative community, Durham focuses on doing creative things, details like event promotion rely on a loose federation of neighborhood list serves, local papers, blogs, and word of mouth. I plan to build a central, searchable repository of events; this web application will serve as both a browsable web presence, and a simple, flexible events engine for any party interested in consuming and displaying a slice of the data.

The second will be a data visualization project. I believe we’re experiencing a critical shift in the interpretation of information. The internet has delivered a revolutionary data storage and retrieval system. With a focus on learning to interpret all that information, we’ve entered an era where traditionally numerical data and it's influences can be visualized. I believe this new age of readily accessible visual data will have profound implications for how we make decisions and understand the world. I will explore this medium using data that grows out of the first two projects.