Now there’s another way to see (and hear) what’s trending in the German-speaking Twitter universe. It’s called #tweetscapes, and it’s a preview of yet another coming trend – real-time infographics.
Here, the audiovisual representation of tweets on a map of Germany is based on a number of factors: the content of tweets, hashtags, sender location, number of followers, and whether it is a retweet, reply, or otherwise; these dictate things like the size and color of tweets, and whether a tweet is registered as a blip, ripple, or thunderous boom.
#tweetscapes is not the first artistic Twitter mashup, but it’s the most immersive I’ve seen so far – and the darkest.
Dark perhaps because I saw it live at a showcase event at Berlin’s Berghain last night – this thanks to an invitation from my friend Marcus Gammel, host of the weekly Klangkunst (art of sound) program on Deutschlandradio Kultur, who helped realize the project with Anselm Venezian Nehls, Thomas Hermann, and audiovisual composer Tarik Barri.
You can experience the live stream here for yourself. I recommend it, though I admit it might not be quite the same as hearing it out of Berghain’s fabled sound system.
Image: Screenshot from #tweetscapes live stream on January 18, 2012
