no comments | 
Tim Schwartz and his installation at The New Children's Museum. (Courtesy photo)
The world is constantly abuzz with breaking news, but what does the U.S. media deem most relevant?
San Diego-based artist and developer Tim Schwartz invites teenagers to put this question into perspective with his interactive installation “America’s View of the World,” currently on display downtown at The New Children’s Museum.
Visitors are asked to cut out newspaper articles and paste them onto corresponding countries on a large atlas, the intention being to piece together a topography of hot topics and locations. Schwartz, who’s currently working toward a Master of Fine Arts degree at UCSD, hopes to “let other people engage and understand how the U.S. media portrays the world to us.”
Visualizing information is a common theme in Schwartz’s work.
In projects like “New York Times Data Grapher” and “Geohistoriography,” the former assistant curator of digital media at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image even went as far as developing a data mining application that tracks term usage from The New York Times’ online article feed.
Though that may sound a bit complicated, “America’s View of the World” presents a more easily accessible, hands-on version of those concepts.
Located in the Teen Studio on the second floor of the museum, the exhibit consists of two large wooden tables painted with a world map of countries that are intentionally unidentified. Visitors are encouraged to make use of the giant atlas, globe and set of World Book Encyclopedias included within the space.
When I visited the museum, entire newspaper articles, headlines and stand-alone photos were plastered all over the map, most abundantly in the U.S., Iran, and England. It was no surprise to find that Michael Jackson’s unexpected death was a recurring item.
Curious about what two months’ worth of news gathering will reveal?
The final incarnation will be on view at a public reception hosted by the museum on July 23 from 5-7 p.m. Bring the kids and talk about what you see.
The New Children’s Museum is located at 200 West Island Ave., in downtown San Diego. (619) 233-8792; www.thinkplaycreate.org
Asami Novak is an SDNN contributor.
Tags: America's View of the World, Geohistoriography, Museum of the Moving Image, New Children's Museum, New York Times Data Grapher, SDNN, Teen Studio, Tim Schwartz
