Project #10 Sousveillance Tool

Design Process

Virtual Currency Trends and Analysis

https://api.coinlore.net/api/global/
Virtual currencies were very confusing to me when I was first introduced to them, and I never had any concrete idea about this stuff. It was only when the epidemic started to break out in 2020 and Bitcoin rose 300% in 2020 that it gradually started to gain popularity among the general public. As to who exactly is manipulating the movement of bitcoin, I think it's as unfathomable as the dark web. Now that we can use api to see the movement of these virtual currencies, this reverse surveillance is very valuable.

Carbon Emission in UK

https://api.carbonintensity.org.uk
Having lived in the UK, I have heard about the industrial revolution when the UK was extremely polluted due to the large amount of carbon emissions. A century later, this pollution is happening again in another city I lived in - Beijing. Every day we need to wear masks to go out, and every time we come home the masks are covered with black and yellow pollutants. We, as small human beings, are enveloped in this huge cage.

Crime in NYC

https://dev.socrata.com/foundry/data.cityofnewyork.us/5jvd-shfj
After the epidemic began, crime cases in New York City gradually spiked. There were many reasons involved, the recession led to a rise in unemployment. Racial discrimination led to anti-asian white heat. These many aspects led to a deep fear in me as I was just about to come to New York. All the information I saw was reported by the Chinese media on the Chinese platform, and when they only report on a single individual incident, it raises the fear of going to the U.S. for us international students. However, coming here, I gradually realized that only real data is really convincing.

Description

For a citizen living in New York City. I can't ignore some of the crimes reported on the news, and I can never let my guard down from the moment these incidents are heard among my ears. I am afraid to go home alone too late, and also being scared to go to some areas where crimes are reported to happen frequently. But this kind of individual incident media reports in my opinion there is a certain orientation. We shouldn't jump to conclusions until we have solid, concrete data. The government manipulates the media and public opinion, and only real data is trustworthy. Therefore, I have created the cumulative number of crimes committed in the different boroughs. This way, no matter how repetitive the news is, we can get rational data that is really a sousveillance tool.

For the visual part, I was inspired by the album cover of Joy Division, the name of which was inspired by the World War II novel The House of Dolls. In the book, the word "joy division" is slang for a concentration camp where Jewish women were forced to sell themselves to Nazi soldiers. The cover was inspired by the continuous pulse waveform of the first pulsar discovered, CP1919. Both the name of the band itself and the meaning of the cover have conflicting meanings. This contradictory expression I think is perfect for documenting crime. Because crime is also based on the conflict of various aspects. When the user enters a borough in NYC, the height of the peak changes, and the higher the height, the higher the number of crimes.