I live in Norway. To many it is a strange country, way up north, where polar bears roam the streets and we are either depressed because of the complete darkness during winter or the never ending light during summer due to the midnight sun, when darkness is chased to oblivion. Where cool visualizations happen.

(that was quite a leap…)

Since I started my creative career I have been interested in visualization, design and presentation of data. Big data is more important than ever and I have over the last few weeks been preparing for a major product launch at Barco – a launch that includes large pixel spaces and large projection screens.

Simulation Center in Halden

By luck I managed to get involved (albeit only in blending and warping the projectors used for the more than 15 meter wide curved screen J ) in the opening of the grand simulation and visualization center at NCE Smart Energy Markets in Halden. Now this is really something to work with for those with complex data to present!

Strange country

Going back to the introduction text… Admittedly, I might have exaggerated just a tad there. However, we are a strange country in many aspects, and one of the most peculiar is probably the fact that income and wealth data has traditionally been publicized annually. This represents of a lot of data.

Data is cool. Data can be used.

So… what to do with this data?

Since the data is publicly available, you can find the creative minds of people like Even Westvang igniting fires – and creating valuable and highly fascinating visualizations – in this case using the C++ library Cinder.

With the help of the crowdsourcing effort by Erik Bolstad to collect postal code positions, Westwang paired the tax data with postal codes to visualize how 300.000 flightless birds (Norwegians) and its migratory patterns; the people of Norway moving house.

And with this, I want to introduce you to Deluge – by Bengler. Enjoy!