Welcome to Keyword City

First there was google earth now there's a virtual earth created out of search. Sometimes I feel like the internet is becoming our very own version of matrix. This application, which fellow Mac users can download, allows users to navigate a virtual city created by people's search terms on NY-centric blogs, an architecture of intention, if you will. I think the most fascinating part is the keywords associated with individual neighborhoods.

All my surrounding neighborhoods were linked by the search term: baths. I have no explanation for this. Here's a fancier more formal description and some video.
Pastiche: A collective composition
"The city is a composite of impressions. Beyond the built environment, it is a constantly changing pastiche of associations and experiences—not just of of the people who inhabit it, but of the larger community. New York City, in particular, has two realities: the reality of the physical environment, and the reality of the idea—of what the city and its diverse neighborhoods signify. Inseparably interwined, these two realities constantly continue to inform eachother. Pastiche is a dynamic data visualization that maps keywords from blog articles to the New York neighborhoods they are written in reference to, geographically positioned in a navigable, spatial view. Keywords are assigned based on relevance and recency, surrounding their corresponding neighborhoods. The result is a dynamically changing description of the city, formed around individual experiences and perspectives."

You can download the application off the artist's, Christian Marcschmidt, site here.