The Unemployed at Los Angeles International Airport










The Unemployed
Terminal 6 Departure Level, May - October 2019

The Unemployed is a data visualization that illustrates worldwide unemployment. Using data culled from online sources that list unemployment rates by country, The Unemployed represents the jobless as animated figures. The number of unemployed varies from country to country ranging from a few thousand in sparsely populated places to many millions. As the software randomly cycles through the countries, the unemployed are depicted as figures moving in empty space. Passersby's movements are captured by a webcam and their silhouettes are projected onto the wall and transformed into an array of ambling figures. On the monitors, the figures move within the confines of their countries. The clusters of figures metaphorically become an available labor force, as well as the visible presence of the jobless.

Video Documentation by Eric Minh Swenson



The animations on the monitors






Click here to download The Unemployed as an iOS app.



Click here to experience the project as a website.