Think Globally, originally uploaded by densitydesign.

Thomas Friedman says the world is flat. Ingo Gùnther proves otherwise. In his Worldprocessor series, the New York artist maps geosocial and scientific data from newspapers and NGOs onto 12-inch-diameter plastic globes. The result is part infographic, part networking diagram, part humanistic commentary. So far, Gùnther has crafted some 300 globes, more than a third of which go on display in August at Kyushu University in Japan. His biggest challenge? Keeping his worldviews up-to-date. Because the underlying statistics are always changing, Gùnther’s work can be quickly rendered obsolete, so much so that he rarely sells it. “I once considered putting expiration dates on the pieces,” he says. “I’d rather lease them and then retrieve them for updating.”

(via Wired)