Responses by Active Theory.

Background: The site was developed to support the launch of Bon Iver’s new album, i,i. By working with Spotify to source streaming data, we visualized listeners from all over the world, highlighting the global listening patterns of Bon Iver’s fans.

The album name i,i reflects not only Bon Iver himself but also the collaborators who contributed to the album. Beyond this, the i’s also represent members of Bon Iver’s global fanbase. The ViiSUALiiZER is one of the core components in the album release and acts as a visual hub for listeners tuning in on Spotify.

Design core: The i’s that make up the visualizations. The site shows how people are listening in real time, made completely from i’s in a stripped back, “no design” format—a nod to some of Bon Iver’s artwork by Eric Timothy Carlson. The i’s represent the growing collective of Bon Iver’s fans, rearranging themselves to show a tremendous amount of data and artwork. The ASCII artistic choice also references Bon Iver’s creative process, which is technologically minimalistic.

Favorite details: Working small details into the site that only the most engaged users will find adds a layer of depth to the story. For example, when on the main screen exploring streaming info, the user can delete the words in the textbox, similar to a notepad tool.

Technology: The site is created in WebGL using our internal JavaScript framework. Spotify provides data such as current streams, collective streams, total listening time and trending songs, all which power the data visualizations.