the cost of war

2016 tagged with: art, experience design filed under:

The real cost of the Iraq war was paid by civilians who were killed in the crossfire.

In this project, a light flickers for each civilian death during the 2003–11 conflict in Iraq. There are two lights: one representing civilian lives taken by the American coalition, and another that flickers when a civilian was killed by opposing forces.

installation: Every second represents one day from the Iraq War; so, every hour the lights flicker as many times as civilian deaths during 9 years of the conflict (2003–11). a robust, compact box controls the lights. the installation is plug-and-play, and can be set up within minutes. it can be placed in almost any kind of space because light, being amorphous, fills up whatever space it is given (example).

book: automated workflow to parse & merge large data-sets, render html, style it, and produce a printable book. self-published and hand-bound. collaboration with rohit sharma.

worked with: data, electricity, open-source hardware, processing, light & space, css, print.
data source: iraqbodycount.
with help & advice from: charlotte jarvis, lucio sgrigna, ian gabb, martin salmon.