Presented online and in person at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Arts Houston and the Museum of the City of New York, the artwork features audio recordings of 100 people counting from 1 to 100 in various languages, accompanied by a transcription in white letters on a black screen. Localized versions reflect the linguistic landscapes of New York City, St. Louis, Houston, Omaha, and Ogden, Utah, as well as the United States in general. A sign language version is also in the works.
Most of the voices are those of people who called to be recorded. The Poetic Justice team created an algorithm that “selects and weights languages that are less recorded so that you hear them more often,” says Ijeoma. The video changes over time as new recordings are added.
“A Counting” is the latest in a series of artworks that take advantage of Ijeoma’s background in information technology to translate cold data into something charged with feeling. “I want to create a contemporary portrait. What better way to do it [than] with contemporary tools and techniques, those of data analysis and visualization, not in a literal way, but in a poetic way? he says.
