The Dumpster 2006
Golan Levin with Kamal Nigam and Jonathan Feinberg

The Dumpster by Golan Levin in collaboration with Kamal Nigam and Jonathan Feinberg, visualises information using data from web logs to plot the romantic lives of teenagers, creating a dynamic, interactive map of relationship start-ups and break-downs.
Using data gathering and data analysis strategies the work creates a group portrait that illustrates relational formations, by drawing upon the popularity of social media platforms.
… in Levin’s group portrait, you are encouraged to navigate both horizontally, vertically, and diagonally between the particular and the general. You can, for example, simply click on different circles, jumping from one break-up case to another and randomly explore the overall data space. Or you can explore the circles that are similar in colour – which means that the corresponding postings are similar in some ways.
Lev Manovich, from Social Data Browsing, 2006
The viewer/reader is able to at once, view the components of the portrait through the examination of individual narratives and at the same time review their context within the larger group.
The Dumpster has been commissioned in collaboration with artport, the Whitney Museum of American Art's portal to net art.
Text by Lev Manovich on Golan Levin’s ‘social data browser’ The Dumpster in which he (with Kamal Nigam and Jonathan Feinberg) manipulates portraiture, documentary, and new-media genres such as visualisation and database art.
Biography
Also read / view
Screening CircleNet Art by Andy Deck, also commissioned in conjunction with Artport, 2006
The Battle of AlgiersNet Art by Marc Lafia and Fang-Yu Lin, also commissioned in conjunction with Artport, 2006
Further References
Flong (Golan Levin)Kamal Nigam's biography Jonathan Feinberg's biography ArtportArtport is the Whitney Museum's portal to net art and digital arts, and an online gallery space for commissioned net art projects.