Work

Title

#oneSecond (09.11.12 14:47:36 GMT)

Author

Philipp Adrian

Date

2013

Description

5522 tweets sent within the same second from all over the world, preserved and categorized in four books.

One second on Twitter laid out in four books on over 4500 pages. Containing tweets written in 42 different languages from people all across the world. Categorized by language, timezone, avatar type or registration date. Set by using 14 Fonts with over 100'000 different characters. Using data like followers, friends and status counts to define the appearance for each users data.

My Message is... contains the actual message that has been sent in that second. Its ordered by the language of the tweet was written in. The size and order of the tweet (within every language) is derived from the number of followers (recipients) of this user. Images that were attached to the tweets are printed in the back of the book.

Each user on twitter has the possibility to customize the colors of his account. My Color is... shows each users color. The colours are categorized by the timezone the tweet was send in. For different people across the world the second happened to different times in the day. Within each timezone, the users are ordered by color and the size of each field is derived from the amount of people the user follows.

Categorized by year of registration, My Description is... shows how each user describes himself on his profile. The size and order of the descriptions is derived from the klout score ( the ability to drive action) of the user.

My Name is... shows the image that each user chose to represent him-/herself. The users avatars are categorized depending on what the image shows. The size and order of the images is derived the number of tweets the user has sent.

All four books are connected by the users and their unique username. Every user is part of each book but dependent on the categorization his position within the book changes. At the beginning of each book there is an index of all usernames and where to find them in the current book.

The project was created at the HGK Basel, Switzerland as part of the typography class supervised by Prof. Marion Fink. It intends to shift the focus from a personalized to a more globalized view on the internet and offers the possibility to explore.

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Context

As both a catalyst and indicator of globalization, the internet can be seen as a public space, in which information disseminates in seconds. Facilitating cultural transfer and creating new local and international subcultures by overcoming geographical distances. With the help of codes and standards the internet keeps developing its own international and decentralized language. This global network, and Twitter as one of its broader intersections, is a platform for vivid interaction between most heterogeneous actors. 5522 of those actors all across the world hit the „tweet“ button at exactly the same second. By taking this moment as a frame, this connection becomes visible and by preserving it, each one of those actors emerges out of the immense volume of anonymous data and becomes an individual again.

Statement

#oneSecond preserves the data of this moment on Twitter and presents it categorized and ordered in four different books. While each book highlights one single aspect of every message written and the actor behind it – providing the reader not only with an insight into that person‘s life but also reveals similarities and connections between nationalities and subcultures – all four books together provide a detailed portrait of each actor.

URL

www.philippadrian.com/project/onesecond

Medium

Book

Volumes

4

Pages

Over 4500

Typefaces

Palatino LT Pro, Whitney, Arno Pro, Myriad Pro, Geeza Pro, Adobe Arabic, NanumMyeongjo, Apple SD Gothic, Kozuka Mincho Pro, Kozuka Gothic Pro, Nakaracha, KaniGa, Apple Symbols, Apple Color Emoji

Edition

1

Platform

Twitter

Technology

basil.js

Process

The tweets were bought from Datasift. The other data were obtained using API's from Twitter, Google, FourSquare, AskGeo. After the data were formatted in JSON, Indesign Scripting and basil.js library were used to generate the books.

Download

Excerpt of the four books: oneSecond_Excerpt.pdf (5.8mb)

Related

This Handsome Four-Volume Book Set Chronicles a Single Second on Twitter” by Rob Walker, Yahoo Tech, April 10, 2014.

Keywords

appropriation, collection, language, online, preservation, privacy

Added

ID

93