Irad Lee

Irad Lee (b. 1982) is a sound and interaction designer currently based in Tel Aviv. Lee’s work explores (new) ways in which sound can be used to convey information, meaning, aesthetic and emotional qualities in interactive contexts. With a background in sound, science and interaction design, his research interests and practice explore the intersection between sound space and body space, tangibility and intangibility, auditory perception and the use of pure sound to transform cultural artifacts, conceptions and ideologies into perceptible experiences. Current work is focused on advanced applications of sound design in motion picture, branding, and interactive art projects.

Lee holds a Diploma in Sonology (Sound Design & Music Technology) from the Institute of Sonology / Royal Conservatory of Music and a Bachelor of Design in Interactive/Media/Design from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, The Netherlands.

Spamology is a live audiovisual representation of word frequencies in spam e-mail messages.

The visualization is based on analysis of a private archive of spam messages which were collected during 10 years (1998-2007), containing up to 2,000,000 emails originated from various parts of the world. Spam data is visualized in a 3D landscape, where popular words are represented as rectangular structures of various heights, illustrating the occurrence rate of each word in the archive year. Next to the visual representation, each word generates an audio signal with a frequency related to the number of times it occurred during a certain year. Words of various frequencies flow through the 3D landscape simultaneously, forming a constantly-changing sonic texture.

Spamology is a part of ongoing research examining the nature of Spam as a digital-cultural phenomenon.

The project aims at visualizing the links and interrelationships between the contents of spam, the user/ individual and the society, by revealing patterns which may reflect cultural and social trends, behaviors and variations.

Spamology was a collaboration with Santiago Ortiz / Bestiario and was realized during Visualizar ’07 data visualization production workshop at MediaLab Prado, Madrid.