viz. - economics

Branding Occupy Wall Street

Steven J LeMieux — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:11:06 +0000

(Image Credit: Michael Nagle, Getty Images via In Focus)

During the past week Occupy Wall Street has gained increasing media attention. The movement, initially called for by the group Adbusters, began in earnest on September 17th when protesters first began to occupy Zuccotti Park. This initial act seems to have largely been met with bemused ambivalence, and while there was originally a single demand articulated by Adbusters in their July call to action—that “Barack Obama ordain a Presidential Commission tasked with ending the influence money has over our representatives in Washington” (Adbusters) –things were quite murky by the time the occupation took shape. Much of the media attention that the movement has gained, especially during this surge in participation, has focused on the apparent lack of concrete demands set forth by OWS. This confusion is misplaced. While the list of hopeful outcomes is amorphous a clear sense of oppositional branding has been developed from the wealth of signs and images created through the movement. OWS demands that we put a hold on our love affair with notions of prosperity that put us in a double bind.

(Image Credit: Adbusters)

This early poster by Adbusters does a nice job of simultaneously crystallizing and confusing the movement. By asking about a single demand it offers the possibility of a unified, concrete protest while leaving that single demand open to interpretation. And while the question broadens possibility the image suggests a possible outcome. Raising above clouds of teargas and crowds of appropriately gasmasked protesters a dancer postures serenely on the Wall Street Bull. She rides the bull when most visitors pose for pictures as they fondle the bull’s balls. The bull can be more than a system by which the 1% (to use the popular 1/99% split that the movement has espoused) cows the other 99%.

(Image Credit: David Shankbone via In Focus)

The Charging Bull, a sculpture created by Arturo Di Modica in the late 80s, has become an icon for Wall Street. Originally created to represent the “strength and power of the American people” the bull has come to stand in for the strength and power of a particular system. What Occupy Wall Street is demanding is that we stop worshiping that system. That all this symbolism has been poured into a bull makes a certain amount of sense. Bulls are domestic animals that never feel quite domestic, yet even with all their power (and perhaps because of it) they are kept under strict control by the humans that own them. Bulls have largely been turned into a tool of reproduction.

The movement has, in some ways, twice enacted a barrier around the bull. Fearful of any particular harm that could befall the icon it was quickly fenced in. The fence and the guards prevented both protestors from nearing the bull and tourists who flock to the bull daily for lucky rubs and pictures. And by enforcing the cordoning off of the bull the OWS protests have perfectly created a visualization of their message. By enforcing this barrier the bull (and, more importantly, what it has come to represent) is show to be something that we cannot access. The above video by BLUCHEEZ accurately portrays some of the frustrations inherent in this sudden distance between the bull and its followers.

(Image Credit: Erin M via Fast Company)

Gaps have value. And creating distance can be a goal in and of itself. Through this distance we can begin to recognize the multitude of relationships that are manifest between the economic and political systems in this country and the people that inhabit them.

Visualizing the Economy and the Rhetoric of Infographics

Michael Widner — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:30:00 +0000

via Mother Jones, "It's the Inequality, Stupid"

Infographics can provide visual drama and emotional impact to otherwise incomprehensible and dry numbers. As Ladysquire's recent post on The 12 States of America demonstrates, they can be particularly good at capturing income inequality. The image from Mother Jones above is another nice example of the striking disparity among Americans' perception of wealth distribution, what they wish it were, and what it actually is. Americans clearly desire an equitable distribution that, while allowing for the accumulation of great wealth, nevertheless lifts all boats. Yet the sad reality is not only different from what the population wants and believes it to be, but is also a difference not just of degree, but nearly of kind.

via Mother Jones, "It's the Inequality, Stupid"

Another rhetorically useful element of such infographics is the multiple perspectives on similar data. The yellow circle of the top 0.01% income group barely fits on the page, itself a design choice intended to comment on disparity by imputing excess and greed to the wealthiest.

via Slate, "The Great Divergence in Pictures: A Visual Guide to Income Inequality"

Slate's similarly focused visual guide represents each percentage of the population with a figure of a human, a choice that makes it all the more dramatic.

Screenshot of New York Times, "Obama's 2012 Budget Proposal"

This interactive map (click through link above to interact) of President Obama's proposed 2012 budget makes it immediately clear that the potential cuts to the budget have pale in comparison to the overall costs and, even, increases in spending. Moreover, many of the cuts would disproportiately affect the most vulnerable.

The polished simplicity of each of these and many related infographics serves multiple purposes. The data become not only more compelling, but also less likely to be questioned. While I don't doubt their accuracy, these infographics nevertheless leave little, if any, room for interpretation. Unlike a prose description of context and motivation, the images present bare facts and a single perspective. Although I happen to agree with the implicit arguments for more equitable income distribution these charts make, I also recognize that they make it nearly impossible to arrive at any conclusion other than the intended one of unjust inequality.

Apocalypse Infographed

timturner — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 00:26:24 +0000

Just spotted a link to this at Andrew Sullivan's blog (h/t): check out the wonderful compilation of explanations of the current financial crisis by graphic designers at FlowingData. Image credit: cypher13 via flowingdata.com

FlowingData is a site that "explores how designers, statisticians, and computer scientists are using data to understand ourselves better - mainly through data visualization. Money spent, reps at the gym, time you waste, and personal information you enter online are all forms of data. How can we understand these data flows? Data visualization lets non-experts make sense of it all." To my knowledge, the site hasn't been linked on viz. before--but I think it's something our readers would really like (but then, they probably already know about it).

"The Shock Doctrine"

timturner — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 00:08:16 +0000

This video does contain some pretty disturbing imagery of people receiving shock therapy and other forms of state-sanctioned violence. So consider yourself warned before you click "play."

The Shock Doctrine is the name of the most recent book by Naomi Klein (her earlier work, No Logo, was an international bestseller and became a handbook of sorts for the anti-globalization movement). (You can read more about the book and its author at naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine; she also lays out her argument more extensively in a series of six videos on YouTube, beginning with "The Shock Doctrine: Part One"; finally, you can also check out the NYT review of the book.)

This short video, created to promote the release of the book, was co-created by Klein and Alfonso Cuarón (and directed by Cuarón's son, Jonas). This is not the first time the two have collaborated: Klein is a commentator on the DVD of Cuarón's most recent film, Children of Men (if you haven't seen it yet, it should promptly be moved to number 1 in your Netflix queue). Apparently, Cuarón was initially reluctant to be involved with this project--until he read the book. (For more on his involvement, click here.)

This is the first time I've seen a short film used to advertise a book; yet this video purports to be a bit more than an advertisement--it was shown at film festivals in Venice and Toronto. The book's argument is that, just as CIA interrogators may have used shock therapy to break down its prisoners, "shock therapy" has been necessary to institute the free market reforms central to the economic history of the last fifty years (Klein calls it "disaster capitalism"). The NYT reviewer calls Klein's reliance on this metaphor "overdramatic and unconvincing," but Cuarón and his son clearly found it visually compelling.

In fact, the feel of this short film is very much in line with dystopic aesthetic of Children of Men. They did not invent this aesthetic, of course: its true source is the infamous Abu Ghraib photos. (How many movies have you seen in the last couple of years in which someone gets a black bag thrown over his or her head?)

And what about the barbed wire morphing into a flowering vine?