benjamin samuel’s captivating artwork visualizes the 2008 market crash

new york-based artist benjamin samuel translates the dramatic market crash of 2008 into his latest collection dow jones industrial 30+1, set to be exhibited at the portal art fair in manhattan. the designer first became fascinated by the stock market back in early 2009 as the dow was approaching its lowest point. ‘as someone who is interested in math, numbers and programming, the abstract nature of the stock market very much appealed to me’, Benjamin Samuel explains, ‘after all, the stock market is man-made. the tension between the abstract nature of the stock market and the very real life stories you would see on the news prompted me to create my work.’

dow jones industrial 30+1 transparency in lightbox
64 x 43 3/8 x 3 3/4in 162.5 x 110 x 9.5cm edition 5+2AP

in order to create dow jones industrial 30+1, benjamin samuel gathered the closing prices of all dow jones listed companies for the entire year 2008 from the internet — he then wrote software code that visually transforms and represents the data. as each stock for each company has a fixed hue assigned, the artist proceeds to link and control the brightness of the color based on the price of the stock; higher stock prices translate to brighter colors and lower stock prices to darker colors. once his algorithm was set up, his computer code proceeds to translate the data into a visual image. ‘as humans, we have a tendency to see patterns in the most random objects and even where none exist’ elaborates the artist, ‘I was expecting to see a pattern emerge in the visualization of the stock market data, but was mesmerized that a man-made phenomenon, based at least in part on rational choices, appears so perfectly random, like the gentle ripples in a pool of water.’

the deutscher aktienindex 30+1 transparency in lightbox
64 x 43 3/8 x 3 3/4in 162.5 x 110 x 9.5cm edition 5+2AP

the artist conceived this work as a pair meant to be exhibited together. the corresponding work ‘deutscher aktienindex 30+1’ applies the identical technique on the stock market quotes of the 30 companies listed in the german stock market index DAX. while the company colors differ, the general composition of the two works is similar.

a close-up of the dow jones industrial 30+1 

samuel carefully researched which companies are listed in the index, and assigned a hue to each company based on its primary company color. his program reads in all the data, and arranges it in a simple matrix. he also applied a smoothing function over the image data, which gives the final work a calming and impressionistic quality. it is reminiscent of a flowing pool of water, which prompted the late german art and architecture critic dieter bartetzko to draw parallels to claude monet’s water lilies.

dow jones industrial 30+1 (left) and deutscher aktienindex 30+1 (right)

company color wheels of deutscher aktienindex (left) and dow jones industrial (right)

the dow jones industrial stock quotes

a portrait of benjamin samuel

cover catalogue of publishing company distanz

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.