---
title: Twitter Portraits by Lori Hepner
description: Artist Lori Hepner has devised an ingenious and mesmerizing approach to the representation of identity in the age of digital social media — in her ongoing series Status Symbols, she makes portraits of individual posts on Twitter.
canonical: https://time.com/3780238/data-visualization-twitter-portraits-by-lori-hepner/
author: Neil Harris
article:opinion: false
article:content_tier: free
article:published_time: 2011-08-26T08:00:34.000Z
article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:41:24.587Z
article:section: World
og:title: Twitter Portraits by Lori Hepner
og:description: Artist Lori Hepner has devised an ingenious and mesmerizing approach to the representation of identity in the age of digital social media — in her ongoing series Status Symbols, she makes portraits of individual posts on Twitter.
og:url: https://time.com/3780238/data-visualization-twitter-portraits-by-lori-hepner/
og:site_name: TIME
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og:image:height: 675
og:image:alt: S3Roll1_Frame10_16C-blackd
og:type: article
twitter:card: summary_large_image
twitter:title: Twitter Portraits by Lori Hepner
twitter:description: Artist Lori Hepner has devised an ingenious and mesmerizing approach to the representation of identity in the age of digital social media — in her ongoing series Status Symbols, she makes portraits of individual posts on Twitter.
twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a086a61ea0e87a4/698798672dce011f4d9dec12/s3roll1_frame10_16c-blackd.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9
---
# Data Visualization: Twitter Portraits by Lori Hepner
by
[Neil Harris](/author/neil-harris/)
## Neil Harris
Aug 26, 2011 8:00 AM CUT
@britneyspears, 6 May via web "@NICKIMINAJ Werkkk it girl! http://mypinkfriday.com/news/33562 -Britney"
@britneyspears, 6 May via web "@NICKIMINAJ Werkkk it girl! http://mypinkfriday.com/news/33562 -Britney"Lori Hepner
by
[Neil Harris](/author/neil-harris/)
## Neil Harris
Aug 26, 2011 8:00 AM CUT
As we spend more and more of our lives on computers, the evidence of our relationships are recorded in an ever-expanding sea of bits and bytes. How to represent our digitized relationships visually presents a particular challenge to photographers, but Pittsburgh-based artist Lori Hepner has devised an ingenious—and mesmerizing—approach. In her ongoing series _Status Symbols_, she makes portraits of individual posts on Twitter.
The devices used to make the pictures (custom built over several months by Hepner herself, and programmed with the help of collaborators) consist of a spinning strip of eight LED lights that flash different colors and patterns based on the binary code of each character in a given tweet. Each character in a tweet blinks once, and a tweet of up to 140 characters takes about 3.5 seconds to appear. Hepner then uses a medium-format film camera on a tripod to photograph the device.
While each tweet is a unique reflection of the specific data in the tweet, the resulting images are abstracted enough that the language cannot be read or inferred from the content of the image. In the same way that a traditional photographic portraits only captures someone’s likeness for a brief moment, each image from _Status Symbols_ is just one fraction of someone’s virtual persona.
One of Hepner’s two devices is an interactive sculpture that grabs content live from Twitter, and will be in use tonight, Aug. 26, at the [Houston Center for Photography’s](http://www.hcponline.org "undefined") [annual fundraising party, SPIN7](http://hcponline.org/calendar.asp?pageid=5&calid=898 "undefined"). Send a tweet regarding “the future of photography” during the party (8p.m. to 11p.m. CT) and include the hashtag **#status** and your Twitter portrait will be seen at the show. Hepner will also be selecting individual tweets to photograph later for a mini portfolio of portraits from the event. Check [her site](http://www.lorihepner.com/ "undefined") in a few weeks to see if she makes a print of your #status portrait!
[_Follow @lorihepner on Twitter_](http://twitter.com/#!/lorihepner "undefined")_, and see more of Hepner’s work and purchase prints directly on her_ [_web site_](http://www.lorihepner.com/ "undefined")_._ _Hepner’s work is currently on display at the_ [_Houston Center for Photography_](http://hcponline.org/gallery.asp?pageid=12&galid=876 "undefined")_. You can read more about her process from the_ [_Brooklyn Museum_](http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/bloggers/2009/12/22/qa-with-lori-hepner/ "undefined")_and watch a video of her discussing the early work at_ [TEDx Leadership Pittsburgh](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEGHLopKWqM&feature=player%5Fembedded "undefined")_._ Status Symbols _will be part of the forthcoming 14th International Photography Festival in Lishui, China, from Nov. 5-9, 2011\._ [_Hepner is also currently an Assistant Professor of Integrative Arts at Penn State Greater Allegheny._](http://www.ga.psu.edu/aspnet/detail.aspx?f=aa&q=ACAD&u=1008877 "undefined")
Each piece in Hepner's project is a photographic print of a spinning array of LED lights which flash different patterns and colors based on the characters in a given tweet. The title of each piece consists of the author of the tweet, the date, and the source, as well as the text of the tweet itself. @yaboyskeete, Fri Oct 22 17:47:17 2010 from #status Twitter Search (#6) "Lol RT @imFre5HJeff: He need a permission slip. Lol RT @YaboySkeete #Status Saturday & #Vudu Sunday RT (cont) http://tl.gd/6jt3nj" Lori Hepner
@ranjit, 11:25am Dec 2nd, from the web (#2) "@1stfans rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" Lori Hepner
@thatwaszen, Dec 7th from web (#2) "@1stfans On the 5th, I took some vitamin C, and a nice long nap. Hoped to brush off a cold, which I did." Lori Hepner
@aplusk, 8 May via UberSocial for iPhone "Ouch http://lockerz.com/s/99792681" Lori Hepner
@britneyspears, 6 May via web "@NICKIMINAJ Werkkk it girl! http://mypinkfriday.com/news/33562 -Britney" Lori Hepner
@cnnbrk, 10 May via web "Microsoft to buy Skype in $8.5 billion deal. http://on.cnn.com/lTyH4z" Lori Hepner
@cnnbrk, 10 May via web "Arnold #Schwarzenegger, Maria #Shriver announce split after 25-year marriage http://on.cnn.com/k1E68o" Lori Hepner
@justinbieber, 10 May via web "#teambieber #wegohard MANILA! SHOWTIME!!" Lori Hepner
@katyperry, 10 May via ÜberSocial "@rihanna #WERQ" Lori Hepner
@katyperry, 9 May via UberSocial "WELLINGTON I'M HERE!!!" Lori Hepner
@katyperry, 8 May via UberSocial "@MDMOLINARI #momshome" Lori Hepner
@KimKardashian, 9 May via UberSocial "@AllieRizzo I have the cutest pics, I will email u all of them!" Lori Hepner
@BarackObama, 7 May via web "Clean energy will help us out-compete and out-innovate the rest of the world. http://OFA.BO/SHfoZe" Lori Hepner
@ladygaga, 8 May via Twitter for BlackBerry® "@rafamterra $mkkkppo#andalogobusão®" Lori Hepner
@TehranBureau, 28 May via bitly "Will #Iran unplug the internet? http://to.pbs.org/j7zwWZ (via @WSJ)" Lori Hepner
@foto8, 28 May via Seesmic for Android "RT @marc\_vallee: "Police Clash With Protesters in Barcelona", http://tinyurl.com/42wc5he Video footage. #Spain #Protest #Demo2011 " Lori Hepner
@jennyholzer, 28 May via Twitter for iPhone "ABSTRACTION IS A TYPE OF DECADENCE" Lori Hepner
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