Viral Cycles, Christoph Geiger

This project aims to map the digital life of a real virus. However, this is not a statistical visualisation of a virus that we’ve come to know throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, we’re interested in mapping how the virus has managed to infect discussions within society and hold our attention in online spheres. Using Twitter API to collect data on the number of times »virus« in mentioned on Twitter (and the users who mention it) we’re using digital conversation as a way to measure the viruses’ prevalence in society. In this way we can view the human effects of the virus through the lens of data and use this data to infect our visualisations. Whilst the world is still in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, this visual work appears as a living entity, growing a mutating with the online conversation. However, as time passes this conversation may change and die out altogether. In which case, only a new wave of virus can revive the visuals.