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]

Josh Begley
Born1984 (age 39–40)
San Francisco, California
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley,
NYU's Tisch School of the Arts
Known forDigital Art, Data Visualization
Websitejoshbegley.com

History

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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

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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

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  • "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

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  1. ^ "Apple Rejects App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". Wired Magazine. Wired. 2012-08-30. Retrieved 2017-08-09.
  2. ^ 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.
  3. ^ "Josh Begley - Good Luck with the Wall". Getxophoto International Image Festival. Begihandi. 2018. Retrieved 2018-11-17.
  4. ^ "The Knotted Line". AIM Hatchfund. 2011. Archived from the original on 2018-10-04. Retrieved 2018-10-04. He is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
  5. ^ a b McGuinness, William (2012-12-13). "Josh Begley, NYU Grad Student, Tweets Every Drone Strike". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  6. ^ a b "4,916 Prisons In One Place: 'Prison Map' by Josh Begley". Prison Photography. 2012-05-25. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  7. ^ Wingfield, Nick (2012-08-30). "Apple Rejects App Tracking Drone Strikes". New York Times.
  8. ^ Henn, Steve (2012-08-30). "Drone-Tracking App Gets No Traction From Apple". NPR All Tech Considered. NPR. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
  9. ^ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (2012-12-11). "Student Tweets Entire History of US Drone Strikes". Mashable. Mashable. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
  10. ^ "Josh Begley Tweets Entire History of U.S. Drone Attacks". The Daily Beast.
  11. ^ "The NYU Student Tweeting Every Reported US Drone Strike Has Revealed A Disturbing Trend". Business Insider.
  12. ^ "Kickstarter of Doom: Hoax Site 'Funds' Torture Bus, Death Drones". Wired.
  13. ^ "'Kony 2012' Threatens Lawsuit Against Online Parody". Wired.
  14. ^ "After 5 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". Mashable.
  15. ^ "After 12 Rejections, Apple Accepts App That Tracks U.S. Drone Strikes". The Intercept.
  16. ^ 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.
  17. ^ "The Great SIM Heist: How Spies Stole the Keys to the Encryption Castle". The Intercept.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ a b Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (2012-12-11). "Student Tweets Entire History of US Drone Strikes". Mashable. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  20. ^ "Winners 2017 - Prix Ars Electronica". Archived from the original on 2017-07-19. Retrieved 2017-10-09.
  21. ^ Cunningham, Vinson (February 2, 2018). "A Haunting Video of Every Concussion Reported During the Current N.F.L. Season". The New Yorker.
  22. ^ "The Legacy of Lynching: Confronting Racial Terror in America - Symposium & Events - Haverford". Haverford College.
  23. ^ Brook, Pete (2016-01-05). "Visualizing 'Officer-Involved' Deaths Across America". Time. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  24. ^ Brook, Pete (2015-01-09). "Aerial Photos Expose the American Prison System's Staggering Scale". Wired.
  25. ^ "Prison Map". MIT - Docubase. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  26. ^ Madrigil, Alexis C. (2014-05-22). "The Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood". The Atlantic.
  27. ^ ""Is Urbanism Just The New Term for Gentrification?" | American Leadership Forum - Silicon Valley". alfsv.org. Archived from the original on 2018-10-04. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  28. ^ Popovich, Nadja (2012-06-20). "Kony 2012 group threatens lawsuit over 'wartime' Kickstarter-like parody site". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  29. ^ a b Springer, Kate. "The Listserve: What Would You Say to a Million People?". Time. ISSN 0040-781X. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  30. ^ a b "The Artistry And Activism of Data Visualization". The Haverblog. 2016-12-09. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  31. ^ "The Eye-Opening Aerial Geography of U.S. Military Might". CityLab. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
  32. ^ Pulliam-Moore, Charles (2016-01-21). "This app will notify you every time the police kill someone in the U.S." Splinter. Fusion. Archived from the original on 2016-09-23. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
  33. ^ 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.
  34. ^ Engber, Daniel. "This Short Movie Will Change the Way You Watch Football Forever". Slate Magazine. Retrieved 2018-10-04.
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