{"id":120954,"date":"2021-04-25T07:45:53","date_gmt":"2021-04-25T14:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/?p=120954"},"modified":"2023-12-23T23:30:35","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T06:30:35","slug":"unknown-pleasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/2021\/04\/25\/unknown-pleasures\/","title":{"rendered":"Unknown Pleasures"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sure, I was familiar with the graphic\u2013<em>and I\u2019m not alone.<\/em> Drop this image on someone\u2019s desk and chances are they\u2019ll reflexively blurt, <em>\u201cJoy Division.\u201d <\/em>The band\u2019s 1979 Unknown Pleasures album cover leaned entirely on a small, mysterious data display, printed in white on black. No band name, album title, or other identifiers. An interesting move for a debut studio album.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/psyne.co\/products\/unknown-pleasures-1979-vintage-mens-t-shirt\/<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_431471\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-431471\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-431471\" src=\"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-240x300.jpg 240w, https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-510x638.jpg 510w, https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-960x1200.jpg 960w, https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-768x960.jpg 768w, https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-1229x1536.jpg 1229w, https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin-1639x2048.jpg 1639w, https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/unknown-pleasures-artwork-origin.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-431471\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><em>Radio Observations of the Pulse Profiles and Dispersion Measures of Twelve Pulsars,&#8221; by Harold D. Craft, Jr. September 1970.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The cover image became an icon but remained mysterious. Even as knowledge spread about the band\u2019s inspiration point\u2013a preexisting pulsar data visualization (more on this below)\u2013the true origin of that visualization continued to be a bit of a riddle. Somewhere along the way, I became obsessed with the narratives behind pulsar discovery and stacked plots, along with a growing desire to learn all that I could about the image and the research it was connected to.<\/p>\n<p>What follows is an abridged story borne of that obsession, starting with a video screened at a data visualization conference and ending with an interview with Harold (Hal) Craft, the radio astronomer who created the plot from data collected at the Arecibo Radio Observatory.<\/p>\n<p>In late 2012 I saw the Unknown Pleasures album cover in a new light. VISUALIZED conference attendees were treated to a screening of <em>Data Visualization, Reinterpreted: The Story of Joy Division\u2019s Unknown Pleasures Album (directed by Eric Klotz and Volkert Besseling)<\/em>&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.scientificamerican.com\/sa-visual\/pop-culture-pulsar-origin-story-of-joy-division-s-unknown-pleasures-album-cover-video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-schema-attribute=\"\"><em><strong>read more &gt;<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/psyne.co\/products\/unknown-pleasures-textual-1979-vintage-mens-t-shirt\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sure, I was familiar with the graphic\u2013and I\u2019m not alone. Drop this image on someone\u2019s desk and chances are they\u2019ll reflexively blurt, \u201cJoy Division.\u201d The band\u2019s 1979 Unknown Pleasures album cover leaned entirely on a small, mysterious data display, printed in white on black. No band name, album title, or other identifiers. An interesting move [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":120955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8760,8780,13388,10020,13389,13390,11123,8950,9017,13391,13392,13393,13394,10584,10585,13395,13396,13397,13398,9363,13399,13400,13401],"class_list":["post-120954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bloggage","tag-1970s","tag-8780","tag-blue-monday","tag-goth","tag-goth-band","tag-goth-music","tag-gothic","tag-halloween","tag-horror","tag-ian-curtis","tag-joy-division","tag-joydivision","tag-love-will-tear-us-apart","tag-new-order","tag-new-wave","tag-post-punk","tag-punk-band","tag-punk-rocker","tag-punks-not-dead","tag-rock","tag-shoegaze","tag-show-gazing","tag-unknown-pleasures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pmcgdev.com\/psynecoblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}