It's possible that the problem was originally stated in such a way that there was no solution. Perhaps the original statement of the problem was that each name must be adjacent to every name in its cluster, and readable. But the cluster of 658 people at Cantor Fitzgerald probably makes that impossible - how do you have 658 names all readable and adjacent to each other (in two dimensions)?
Perhaps they really answered "as the problem is stated, it can't be done, without compromises."
Then again, I tend to give computer scientists and statisticians the benefit of the doubt (and not so much the writer).
If I had been asked, my reply would have been "It can't be done. If you want help from me or someone like me, you'll need to make a loose ranking of the qualities of the ideal solution, and we can try some approximations".
I might even have left the latter sentence out, since it's clearly implicit. Maybe whoever they found left it out or maybe they didn't even consider it, but the artist could have made the addition too. I suspect the first few people just weren't interested.
Perhaps they really answered "as the problem is stated, it can't be done, without compromises."
Then again, I tend to give computer scientists and statisticians the benefit of the doubt (and not so much the writer).