Displayed in Somerset House London from Dec 4 2015 to Feb 28 2016

#oneSecond (09.11.12 14:47:36 GMT)

5522 Tweets within the same Second.
Sent from all over the world.
Preserved and categorized in four Books.

As both a catalyst and indicator of globalization, the internet can be seen as a public space, where information can disseminate in seconds. By overcoming geographical distances it facilitates cultural transfer and creates new local and international subcultures. This global network, with Twitter as one of its broader intersections, builds a platform for vivid interactions between most heterogenous actors and stays in a constant state of flux. Every second tousands of people interact with the internet.

On the 9th of November 2012 at exactly 14:47:36 GMT, 5522 of those actors all across the world posted on Twitter. By taking this moment as a frame, this connection becomes visible and by preserving it, each one of these actors emerges out of the immense volume of anonymous data and becomes an individual again.

#oneSecond preserves the data of one 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 revealing similarities and connections between nationalities and subcultures – all four books together provide a detailed portrait of each actor.

The project stops the vast and endless flow of new data. It creates the possibility to take a breath and explore in depth what normally rushes by in a mere instant.

It was created at the HGK Basel, Switzerland as part of the typography class supervised by Prof. Marion Fink.

Description

The Project consists of four books that 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.

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.

Excerpt

Featured

Colophon

Concept and Design

Philipp Adrian, Basel 2012

Supervision

FHNW, HGK Basel
Institut Visual Communication
Prof. Marion Fink
Typography, Spring/Fall 2012

Print

buysite AG, 4005 Basel

Binding

René Freiburghaus AG, 4055 Basel

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

Paper

Freelife Vellum, 80 gm² /140 gm²

Datasources

Datasift
Twitter
Google
FourSquare
AskGeo

Number of Copies

3