Layers of Meaning

10x10 - Visual Events

"With no human editors and no regulation, 10x10 is open and free, raw and fresh, and consequently a unique way of following world events. In 10x10, we respond instinctively to patterns in the grid, visual indicators of relevance. When we see a frequently repeated image, we know it’s important. When we see a picture of a movie star next to a picture of dead bodies, we understand the extremes that exist in our world. Scanning a grid of pictures can be more intuitive than reading headlines, for it lets the news come to life, and everything feels a bit less distant, a bit closer to heart, and maybe, if we're lucky, gives us pause to think."

The paragraph above is from the 10x10 Project, an experiment in understanding the news and world events. It is automatically updated hourly, with images drawn from internet news sources. There are 100 images each hour, placed in a 10 by 10 grid, "ranked in order of importance, reading left to right, top to bottom. Along the right edge of the screen are listed the corresponding top 100 words, one for each image. Moving your mouse across the images enlarges the corresponding word. Clicking on a photo brings up the related headlines, which are links to the articles.

Since 10x10 is completely generated by a computer, it is possible to endless debate the linkages and associations. In relation to art and the fiber art world, this brings up comparisons to other photo montages, such those by Robert Silvers and David Hockney.