Cool is the best description of 10x10. This little app uses the minimalist conceptions of grid art and search algorithms to create "pictures' of the Infosphere every hour. The program identifies words that used most frequently out there (meaning in online news sites) and images that go with them, according to the programmer "10x10 collects the 100 words and pictures that matter most on a global scale, and presents them as a single image, taken to encapsulate that moment in time." According to Jonathon Harris, the programmer and artist behind 10x10, this view of the news without human intervention in the form of editors "makes on comment on news media bias." But of course, by reflecting back to the v/user the faces and places that are in the news the most at a given moment, the grid often presents juxtapositions that we interpret as ironic or cruel, as when Michael Jackson's face appears as often as the face of the kidnapped French reporter Florence Aubenas. The news the program searches comes from BBC, Reuters, and NY Times news services for 100 words that appear most frequently during that hour. When you click on a small grid image, the image enlarges and shows a list of headlines that contain a word that has been linked to the image. Some of the word-image links are obvious, others are not. Sometimes the word is a vital part of the information conveyed in the story, and other times it might be mentioned only tangentially. While media types argue about whether editors help make sense of the news and whether unedited bloggers can be reporters, this program shows us that the information grid we have created envelopes us, with or without editors. This brings to mind McLuhan's discussion of figure and ground and the environment humans create through technology but often fail to "see" like the goldfish who are last to know they exist in water. Before I talk the thing to death, check it out for yourself. It is open source in some ways, too, because the files it collects are available to researchers or artists to use as they see fit. One last point, is that it surely brings some of the questions of culture and copyright to the fore, because it represents a mining of our collective space which should by rights be ours to critique and use in art and scholarship. But will there be use-related and copyright issues about these slices of our Infosphere time/space? Anyway, its got me thinking. Thanks to Eric Gwinn (Tribune staff reporter) for his story about this in the Chicago Tribune today. 10x10 / 100 Words and Pictures that Define the Time / by Jonathan J. Harris