studio – Owen Mundy

I Know Where Your Cat Lives launched

Posted on July 16, 2014 by ow3n

I just launched a new ongoing project this week. Here’s the text, a video and some screenshots. I’ll post more about how I made it soon.

Welcome to the today’s internet—you can buy anything, every website is tracking your every move, and anywhere you look you find videos and images of cats. Currently, there are 15 million images tagged with the word “cat” on public image hosting sites, and daily thousands more are uploaded from unlimited positions on the globe.

“I Know Where Your Cat Lives” iknowwhereyourcatlives.com is a data experiment that visualizes a sample of 1 million public pics of cats on a world map, locating them by the latitude and longitude coordinates embedded in their metadata. The cats were accessed via publicly available APIs provided by popular photo sharing websites. The photos were then run through various clustering algorithms using a supercomputer at Florida State University in order to represent the enormity of the data source.

This project explores two uses of the internet: the sociable and humorous appreciation of domesticated felines, and the status quo of personal data usage by startups and international megacorps who are riding the wave of decreased privacy for all. This website doesn’t visualize all of the cats on the net, only the ones that allow you to track where their owners have been.

Folks can also contribute to a kickstarter to help with hosting costs.

To My Dearest and Beloved Family documentation

Posted on February 3, 2013 (February 3, 2013) by ow3n

For this project I returned to the Coleman Center for the Arts in York, Alabama, to create a new work in collaboration with the community there. During the residency, six years after my first, I invited people to bring pictures of service members, veterans or those depicted in uniform, images of themselves or people whom they knew, to the center. I also collected stories from veterans and family members while they were dropping the images off. The photos depict individuals throughout history, from a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War to a current JROTC member enrolled at Sumter Central High School.

Every image I received was scanned and digitally restored, printed using archival ink and paper, and then sealed in a unique frame. The reproductions are embellished with an artist-designed seal that features the project name and harkens back to both military and government seals as well as gold leaf photo studio adornments. After the exhibition, original and new restored, framed photographs and digital files will be given to the owners. I will also publish a short record of the exchange along with photographs and selected stories, which will be preserved in the York Public Library.

The framed images were installed in a one-person exhibition at the Coleman Center, with The Americans, a reproduction of a military portrait studio, and Through A Glass Darkly, a 12 minute film representing only the landscape scenes from the top 100 Hollywood war films.

More images here

Coleman Center residency progress Tues Jan 29

Posted on January 29, 2013 by ow3n

There is much interest in my project here at the Coleman Center. People stop by every hour with photographs and stories of their past experiences and motivations for joining the service.

To My Dearest and Beloved Family, Aubrey, England, May 3, 1945

On Monday I worked with the Art Club, showing them how to use the equipment and talking about the many different ways the military is represented through photography and film.

Touching up a WWI image

Fred Adams and his portrait

To My Dearest and Beloved Family

Posted on January 25, 2013 (February 3, 2013) by ow3n

I’m writing from the Coleman Center for the Arts in York, Alabama, where I’m currently an Artist in Residence. While here I intend to keep this site updated with news and progress from the projects I’m working on. Below is a “seal” that accompanies the project as well as a letter to the community which was published in various local sources. More soon…

Dear Residents and Friends of Sumter County, Alabama,

I’m writing to ask for your participation in an art project that will investigate our shared experience of service and its representation in photography. Have you or someone in your family served in uniform?

In order to honor the men and women who served our country and to represent the shared experience of sending our sons and daughters far away from home and safety, I would like to invite anyone who has served, or is related to someone who has worn a uniform, to bring a portrait of the service member in uniform to the Coleman Center for the Arts (CCA) in York.

Digital reproductions of the images will be displayed at the CCA, and participants will receive their own free, high quality, archival reproduction of their portrait. Original photos will not be displayed, and will be returned to their owners with the reproductions.

The original image can be any quality, printed or digital, but must be of the person in uniform (military, police, firefighter, etc..) If you like, you are invited to share the story of this person, which with your permission, will become part of an exhibition at the CCA. Stories may be hand written, typed, or directly shared in conversation with the artist.

To participate please bring your photo to the CCA by Monday January 28th at 5 PM. Original photos and reproductions will be available for pick up at the project reception on Thursday, January 31st at 6 pm, or afterward during normal CCA hours.

For more information, contact the CCA at 205-392-2005 or email colemancenter@gmail.com.

Sincerely,

Owen Mundy
Artist in Residence
Coleman Center for the Arts

Processing / OpenGL glitches from recent projects

Posted on January 19, 2013 (January 19, 2013) by ow3n

Enjoying all the screenshots of glitches that appeared as I was testing the visualization for the Flashpoint show in D.C. Here is a sample.

Packet Switching, College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida

Posted on November 14, 2012 by ow3n

Joelle and have completed our Packet Switching (Weimer Hall) commission in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. Read about the process for this project here.

Packet Switching (Weimer Hall), (detail) College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida, inkjet on polyester on panel, 177.5 ft. x 20.21 ft., 2012; Photograph by Steve Johnson / UF College of Journalism and Communications

Grid, Sequence Me projection test (cyan) – work in progress

Posted on November 14, 2012 by ow3n

Joelle and I are working on an installation for Flashpoint Gallery in Washington D.C. This animation was made using ColladaFragmenter to deconstruct the architecture, and Processing with OBJloader to visualize the 3D fragments. The text is scraped from pages describing short sell real estate in D.C. This is work in progress:

Installing Packet Switching

Posted on October 23, 2012 by ow3n

Packet Switching project: ColladaFragmenter software, Kassel, Germany and University of Florida Public Commission

Posted on August 21, 2012 (November 14, 2012) by ow3n

Joelle Dietrick and I embarked on a new body of work this summer called “Packet Switching.” Inspired by her Sherwin Series images and wall paintings, and my work deconstructing and re-visualizing source code and other data, we’ve created two new software projects, as well as a series of limited edition prints, large photo installations, wall-sized paintings, and animations.

The full statement explains our process and intent clearly:

Packet Switching is an ongoing body of work by Joelle Dietrick and Owen Mundy that visualizes architecture as fragments affected by economic and communications systems.

The title of the series references how contemporary communications systems break digital files into smaller manageable blocks of data called packets. Each packet is then sent through a network, taking the quickest route possible, and reassembled once they reach their destination. One JPG image, for example, might be broken into several packets, each of which may travel a different path through the net, even through different cities, before being recompiled into a copy of the original file.

To reference this common process used in networked systems, we wrote custom software that deconstructs a 3D model’s source code and produces unique fragments. We further remixed these fragments using an original application created in Processing. The resulting images become limited edition prints, large photo installations, wall-sized paintings, and animations.

Our process underscores how incidental fragmentation and automation can streamline markets, but also make them vulnerable to systems failure. The use of architecture specifically points to recent real estate market volatility and considers how communication technology-enabled pursuits of profit margins alters our most basic needs.

The first software, that “deconstructs a 3D model’s source code and produces unique fragments,” is open source and available on Github. Essentially, the PHP software, parses a 3D COLLADA file and exports a set number of geometries, that can then be further broken down and used in an artwork or design.

The second software, which we will release soon, remixes these fragments using Processing. The video below shows an example of the whole process.

Wall painting at “Temporary Home” in Kassel, Germany

While artists-in-residence at Temporary Home, in Kassel, Germany, which coincided with Documenta13, Joelle Dietrick and I completed a wall-sized temporary painting based on the architecture from the Bauhaus School at Dessau and 2012 American color forecasts.

Commission at Weimer Hall at the University of Florida

Joelle and I have also received a commission to complete Packet Switching (Weimer Hall) at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications this fall. This will be inkjet on adhesive polyester on a large wall (approx. 177.5 ft. x 20.2 ft.). More details soon.

WORM residency / Tech Talk and Discussion on Social Media Hacking

Posted on July 17, 2012 (July 18, 2012) by ow3n

I’m currently a moddr_/WORM Artist in Residence in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Here, I’m collaborating with Tim C. Schwartz (MFA, UCSD) and Walter Langlaar (Web2.0 Suicide Machine), Birgit Bachler, and others, working on some social media hacking-related projects similar to Give Me My Data.

During the residency we will be conducting multiple workshops, including an API Hacking Masterclass, to discuss the technical underpinnings and conceptual challenges in working with APIs in the service of media art. The two-week residency will conclude with a mini-seminar on social media hacking with guest commentators Florian Cramer, Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academie Rotterdam, and Dr. Geert Lovink, Professor of Interactive Media at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam(HvA).

I’ll be posting some links to upcoming events starting with an Open Lab session:

Tech Talk and Discussion on Social Media Hacking
July 25, 2012

From 14th till 30th of July Tim C. Schwartz and Owen Mundy will be our guests as Artists In Residence. They’ll be working in WORM’s medialab with the moddr_crew on a new version of Owen earlier project “Give Me My Data”; a Facebook application that let’s you retrieve all your input and data from the network.

In today’s ‘Open Lab’ session Tim and Owen will share some insights on the project, and there’ll be room for informal discussion on technical aspect of the project, as well as the more socio-political implications of this type of work.

Location: WORM, Boomgaardsstraat 71, 3012 XA Rotterdam