Tom Corby

Landscapes of Feeling, Arenas of Action: Information Visualization as Art Practice

ABSTRACT Discussing his recent artworks alongside those by Abigail Reynolds, Lucy Kimbell and Christian Nold, the author examines emerging phenomena in the digital and wider fine arts whereby information visualization practices are approached as creative media. By laying bare points of convergence and divergence between artistic and scientific approaches, the article develops a number of arguments that show how the pictures produced by information visualization may be reframed within wider aesthetic and critical frameworks. Thus the author explores how models of image production derived from processes of scientific inquiry expand possibilities for the visual arts to develop new types of hybrid images that consist of data grounded both in material realities and in symbolic and aesthetic elements.

Visualization of Scientific Arts and Some Examples of Applications

In this paper, implementation and visualization of scientific arts are described using some examples of application in subject research areas, such as sculpture, archeology, fine arts and information aesthetics, which have been discussed through the Scientific Art Session at FLUCOME9, Tallahassee, Florida, 2007–9. In the application to sculpture, stereo visualization techniques, such as anaglyph stereo visualization and integral imaging technique, are introduced to realize the three-dimensional geometry of sculpture to enhance visual impact on the art. The second application is the flow visualization technique for archeology, where the vortices behind the river stones are studied to understand the origin of patterns on Jomon pottery. Interestingly, such vortex patterns also appear in the paintings of fine arts. The third example is the visualization of information aesthetics, where the Web information, such as public media and stock market, are visualized through scientific techniques. These examples of visualization of scientific arts provide the present state of the art in interdisciplinary visualization.

CODEX: Mapping Co-Created Data for Speculative Geographies

This article discusses a series of artworks named CODEX, produced by the authors as part of a collaborative research project between the Centre for Research in Education, Art and Media (CREAM), University of Westminster and the Oxford Internet Institute. Taking the form of experimental maps, large-scale installations and prints, the series shows how big data can be employed to reflect upon social phenomena through the formulation of critical, aesthetic and speculative geographies.

Visualizing the News: Mutant Barcodes and Geographies of Conflict

This paper outlines emerging research concerned with visualizing online news archives. The authors make a distinction between the use of visualization for data journalism and the evolution of reporting on current affairs over extended periods of time.

Cyclone.soc: an interactive artwork visualizing internet newsgroup postings as cyclonic weather conditions

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