Nate Larson's art installation matches photos with Twitter tweets

If I were handing out prizes, I'd give one to Nate Larson.

The Sondheim Prize finalist selects the locations for his poetic photographs of cityscapes by using something with the ungainly label of "geotag metadata." (For the technically challenged, that's geographical information embedded in certain digital media, in this case tweets.)

First, Larson selects a message -- typos and all -- from an anonymous Twitter user. Subjects range from the sublime ("Will try my best to live life the right way, morally and ethically. I can't keep living the way I am now..") to the ridiculous ("I wonder if I can leave work early since my boss not here lol...hmmm<-bubble cloud 'hmmmm'"). Next, the artist goes to the location from which the tweet was sent and takes a picture. Each of the 10 pictures is printed with the text that inspired it. None features people.

It all sounds kind of, well, random, but Larson's images -- part art and part documentary -- capture something fleeting and surprisingly poignant about the digital ghosts we leave behind as we go about our lives.

-- Michael O'Sullivan