Josh Begley | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Born | 1984 (age 39–40) San Francisco, California |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts |
Known for | Digital Art, Data Visualization |
Website | joshbegley |
Josh Begley (born 1984) is an American digital artist known for his data visualizations. He is the creator of Metadata+, an iPhone app that tracked every reported United States drone strike.[1] Begley is the director of two short films, Best of Luck with the Wall (2016) and Concussion Protocol (2018), both produced by Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras.[2] He is based in Brooklyn, New York.[citation needed]
History
[edit]Begley was born in San Francisco, California in 1984.[3] He is a graduate of University of California, Berkeley[4] and the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.[5][6]
In July 2012, Begley developed an iPhone application that would send a push notification every time there was a US drone strike in Pakistan, Yemen, or Somalia. Apple rejected the app three times in the months following its release,[7] calling its content "crude and objectionable".[8] Begley then created Dronestream, a Twitter account chronicling every reported US drone strike,[9] for Douglas Rushkoff's Narrative Lab. It gained 15,000 followers in the first week.[10][11]
In June 2012, Begley and two other New York University graduate students, Mehan Jayasuriya and James Borda, received a cease and desist letter from Invisible Children for their Kony 2012 parody website, Kickstriker.[12][13]
In 2014, after five rejections, Apple accepted Begley's iPhone app.[14] It was then approved as Metadata+, before once again being removed by Apple, bringing the total number of rejections to 12.[15][16] He works at The Intercept with journalists Jeremy Scahill, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras.[17]
Career
[edit]Begley is the director of Best of Luck with the Wall (2016), a documentary short about the geography of the U.S.-Mexico border.[18] It was made with 200,000 satellite images downloaded from Google Maps.[19] It received Honorary Mention at 2017 Prix Ars Electronica and was nominated for an ICP Infinity Award.[20]
In 2018, Begley released his second short film, Concussion Protocol (2018), produced by Academy Award-winning director Laura Poitras. The New Yorker called it "a chasteningly gorgeous accounting of each concussion reported during the current N.F.L. season."[21]
He co-taught a class at Columbia Law School in Fall of 2018.[22]
Works
[edit]- "Dronestream", (December 2012) a Twitter account posting every reported United States drone strike.[5]
- "Officer Involved", (June 2015) a photographic project on police violence, with an introduction by the novelist Teju Cole.[23]
- "Prison Map", (2012) a site using aerial photography to provide a visual representation of the US prison system.[6][24][25]
- "Redlining", (2012) an online archive of redlining maps overlaid on California cities.[26][27]
- "Kickstriker", (2012) a parody site Begley built with classmates Mehan Jayasuriya and James Borda, purporting to crowdfund military interventions in global conflicts.[28]
- "The Listserve", part of a NYU class project built by Begley with Greg Dorsainville, Yoonjo Choi, Alvin Chang and Zena Koo.[29] A listserv-like email list where one randomly selected list member per day can send an email to the entire list.[29]
- "Subject of the Dream", a collage of excerpts from the work of Toni Morrison.
- "Racebox", (2010) a website showing the race section of the United States Census through history, from 1790 to 2010.[30] This project explores historical racial identities in the United States and the relationship between government and race.[19]
- "Empire.is", an interactive map showing the location of known United States military installations around the world.[31]
- "Profiling.is", a visual representation of the Associated Press's probe into the New York Police Department's post-9/11 Muslim surveillance program.
- "Archives + Absences", an iPhone app that notifies users every time the police end someone's life in the United States.[32]
- "The News is Breaking," a visualization of every New York Times front page since 1852.[33]
- "Best of Luck with the Wall," (2016) produced by Laura Poitras, a short film about the geography of the U.S.-Mexico Border.[30]
- "Concussion Protocol," (2018) produced by Laura Poitras, a visual record of every concussion reported during the 2017-2018 NFL season.[34]
References
[edit]- ^ "Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". Wired Magazine. Wired. 2012-08-30. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
- ^ Desta, Yohana (2018-02-01). "A Brutal Short Film Captures Every N.F.L. Concussion of the Season". Vanity Fair. Condé Nast. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
- ^ "Josh Begley - Good Luck with the Wall". Getxophoto International Image Festival. Begihandi. 2018. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
- ^ "The Knotted Line". AIM Hatchfund. 2011. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
- ^ a b McGuinness, William (2012-12-13). "Josh Begley, NYU Grad Student, Tweets Every Drone Strike". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ a b "4,916 Prisons In One Place: 'Prison Map' by Josh Begley". Prison Photography. 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ Wingfield, Nick (2012-08-30). "Apple Rejects App Tracking Drone Strikes". New York Times.
- ^ Henn, Steve (2012-08-30). "Drone-Tracking App Gets No Traction From Apple". NPR All Tech Considered. NPR. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
- ^ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (2012-12-11). "Student Tweets Entire History of US Drone Strikes". Mashable. Mashable. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
- ^ "Josh Begley Tweets Entire History of U.S. Drone Attacks". The Daily Beast.
- ^ "The NYU Student Tweeting Every Reported US Drone Strike Has Revealed A Disturbing Trend". Business Insider.
- ^ "Kickstarter of Doom: Hoax Site 'Funds' Torture Bus, Death Drones". Wired.
- ^ "'Kony 2012' Threatens Lawsuit Against Online Parody". Wired.
- ^ "After 5 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". Mashable.
- ^ "After 12 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". The Intercept.
- ^ Wehner, Mike (2017-03-28). "Apple accepts app that tracks US drone strikes after rejecting it 12 different times, then pulls it again". BGR. Retrieved 2022-04-17.
- ^ "The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle". The Intercept.
- ^ Madrigal, Alexis (2016-10-26). "A mesmerizing new short film about the ridiculousness of Trump's border wall". Splinter News. Fusion. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
- ^ a b Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (2012-12-11). "Student Tweets Entire History of US Drone Strikes". Mashable. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ "Winners 2017 - Prix Ars Electronica". Archived from the original on 2017-07-19. Retrieved 2017-10-09.
- ^ Cunningham, Vinson (February 2, 2018). "A Haunting Video of Every Concussion Reported During the Current N.F.L. Season". The New Yorker.
- ^ "The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America - Symposium & Events - Haverford". Haverford College.
- ^ Brook, Pete (2016-01-05). "Visualizing 'Officer-Involved' Deaths Across America". Time. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ Brook, Pete (2015-01-09). "Aerial Photos Expose the American Prison System's Staggering Scale". Wired.
- ^ "Prison Map". MIT - Docubase. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ Madrigil, Alexis C. (2014-05-22). "The Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood". The Atlantic.
- ^ ""Is Urbanism Just The New Term for Gentrification?" | American Leadership Forum - Silicon Valley". alfsv.org. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ Popovich, Nadja (2012-06-20). "Kony 2012 group threatens lawsuit over 'wartime' Kickstarter-like parody site". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ a b Springer, Kate. "The Listserve: What Would You Say to a Million People?". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ a b "The Artistry And Activism of Data Visualization". The Haverblog. 2016-12-09. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ "The Eye-Opening Aerial Geography of U.S. Military Might". CityLab. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
- ^ Pulliam-Moore, Charles (2016-01-21). "This app will notify you every time the police kill someone in the U.S." Splinter. Fusion. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
- ^ Opam, Kwame (2017-02-21). "Watch every New York Times front page fly by and see the rise of the image". The Verge. Vox Media. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
- ^ Engber, Daniel. "This Short Movie Will Change the Way You Watch Football Forever". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
External links
[edit]- Josh Begley's official website
- New York Magazine Interview with Josh Begley from January 2013.
- MSNBC Interview - Tracking US Drone Strikes with Tech from February 2013.