Abstract; What Is This?
The Unlikely Timeline is a project that is fueled by user submissions via a website. My goal is to collect influential events in people's lives from the past decade anonymously. The information shall be grouped in categories ranging from political, social, economical, etc... From this data, I will design a large format timeline that explores how influential events from my submitters' lives interact throughout the decade.
This timeline, a literal unlikely one, will serve as the antithesis to many popular timeline recaps. The iPhone debut, 9/11, Bush's terms in office, terrorist attacks, natural events; how have they really affected people's lives? Can there be more? This timeline shall illustrate that while we, a collective global society, agree certain events are influential throughout all of our lives, the reality these events do not rank as such on our own individualized timelines. The timeline will be geared towards more personal experiences, like the death of a loved one or a family's first purchase of a house. It is my hypothesis that the data shall support my claim: while we can all agree on the important events, they are not our most significant. I, for example, feel horror and sympathy for my nation as I recollect on 9/11, but in reality, my career pursuit, the death of my grandmother, and my first car are much bigger landmarks in my personal life. Through this transition from the agreed to the actual, I am challenging the notion of these timelines. While certain events are important, they are published from an American viewpoint, leading me to the next subsection of my project.
Users are required to input their age and country when they submit their 1-3 events. If time permits, I hope to illustrate a few minimalist graphs that explore the categorical differences based on hemisphere/region. Do people of eastern cultures place more value on one category as opposed to an American? This process is not the scientific process, making this more of a social exploration as opposed to an experiment. The cross-section of people I receive shall not be an accurate representation of our global population.
The driving visual of the timeline shall be the interaction of the various categories. For example, the death of a loved one can be grouped into multiple categories: social, personal, and economical. Each category will have its own timeline, meaning a single entry can exist on more than one categorical line. By using these lines, I am able to present a visual comparison of how the lines gravitate to different users as the chronology flows. As it is now, I have social, economical, political, natural, and personal categories. I may choose to expand these categories or limit them further based on input from my users.
The submissions from my website are sent to an e-mail address. After the deadline is reached, I shall randomly be choosing a preset amount of entries (I speculate within the 100-200 entry range). This method removes any biases I may have to the data, and provides a more accurate representation of the data submitted.
The poster shall be approximately 4' x 10'. This vertical composition was decided upon due in part to spatial restraints of the Daura Gallery. But in doing this format, I have more opportunity to create a more dynamic composition, altering the traditional timeline horizontal format. The graphs will be smaller, 13" x 19" posters. Depending on the time, I can create anywhere from 1-4.
The final document will be available for view on this website starting in May of 2010.