REBECCA E SPITZER

George Legrady’s Cell Tango exhibit opened at the Davis Musuem this fall, and it’s certainly an interesting and timely piece. Aggregating subject-tagged cell phone photos that are emailed in by the public (mainly Wellesley students, faculty, and staff at this point), the piece runs a few different algorithms to organize and display the photos. One algorithm posts a few single-word “tags” and then fills in the remaining space with photos of various sizes; another displays a single photo surrounded by similarly tagged images pulled from Flickr.

Considering the increase in cell phones with cameras (can you even buy a cell phone without a camera these days?), the exhibit takes full advantage of the leaps and bounds made in the field of personal and portable technology. It (successfully) invites user participation, and the subsequent photo-tag groups do offer interesting stories and reflections. In listening to Legrady talk about his work, though, I couldn’t help but wonder if the project could have been taken a step further. It might be interesting, for example, to create a more complete map of all the submitted images, based upon their tags. In it’s current form, Cell Tango doesn’t really create a larger picture of participants and their commonalities, differences, and connections; each photo is either displayed with other photos randomly or with photos from Flickr, not with other related submitted photos. The opportunity to explore our relationships and community is there, but it hasn’t been realized.

After discussing Cell Tango, Legrady discussed a different piece (Making Visible the Invisible) that he installed for Seattle Central Library, which I found more appealing and interesting. The work organizes and displays information about what books are currently being checked out in four different visualizations. I enjoy infographics, especially ones that use good colors (ha), and these are nice. In contrast to the lack of connectivity in Cell Tango, MVTI offers a more complete image of the current interests of the library’s patrons. Legrady likened the display to that of a stock ticker, and I see the connection. The display has its’ finger on the pulse of the library and displays a fascinating stream of ever-changing information. In my eyes, Cell Tango never quite reached that point of mesmerizing omnipresence.