“Abstract: This paper analyzes the relationships between creative design and the field of information visualization, with a focus on historical connotations and newest developments that show great potential. Empirical evidence shows how designers often employ information visualization as a creative concept capable of significantly determining the design outcome, and vice versa, how information visualization can be enhanced by exploring interdisciplinary concepts, such as design cognition, user engagement, aesthetics and art. Several symbiotic dependencies are explained and demonstrated, including the first conceptual cyberspace and information architecture definitions. Continue reading

Info-Aesthetics: Information and Form by Lev Manovich :: April 22, 2008; 3 - 5 pm :: Studio Ciborra, Fifth Floor, Tower One, London School of Economics and Politics, Houghton Street
London.

The unprecedented growth of information puts new pressures on contemporary societies. We need to invent new ways to interact with information, new ways to represent it, and new ways to make sense of it. How are artists, designers, and architects are responding to these challenges? Rather than trying to defend ourselves against “information glut,” can we approach this situation creatively as the opportunity to invent new forms appropriate for our information-rich world? Continue reading

Nude Studies in Aleatoric Environments, by Pall Thayer, consists of automated nude studies abstracted through geological intervention. Though it was conceived primarily as a gallery installation, here Thayer offers us a “taste” of the full piece. The online version uses 4 locations — Lone Pine, California; College Outpost, Alaska; Isla Barro Colorado, Panama; and Wyandotte Cave, Indiana — and only represents the Americas. The gallery version uses 12 locations and represents the whole globe; it also has audio which could not be included in the online version due to bandwidth constraints. Continue reading

From Cinema to Machinima — Software, Database, and the Moving Image - Panel Discussion with Lynn Hershman Leeson, Christiane Paul (Moderators), Henrik Bennetsen, Char Davies, Scott Kildall and Second Front, Howard Rheingold (via Second Life), Scott Snibbe, and Camille Utterback :: April 14, 2008; 7:30 - 9:30 pm :: San Francisco Art Institute, Lecture Hall, 800 Chestnut Street campus :: Free and open to the public.

A panel discussion and virtual performance event, From Cinema to Machinima will explore the many ways in which the digital medium has reconfigured, even transformed, the moving image and thereby redefined concepts of cinema. Continue reading

THURSDAY CLUB :: Rachel Beth Egenhoefer: Knitting Intangibles :: April 17, 2008; 6-8 pm :: Seminar Rooms at Ben Pimlott Building (Ground Floor, right), Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross :: FREE, ALL ARE WELCOME.

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer will be presenting work in progress from her residency that explores the motion of knitting and the motion of code. Some of the work includes a knit zoetrope, interactive virtual knitting, knitting with the Nintendo Wii and others. She describes the interactive virtual knitting as demonstrating the motion from the knitting actions are tracked and translated into a visualization of knit code displayed on screen (and eventually on the web). Continue reading

MapaboutMaps by Sha Sha Feng: Maps convey a certain perspective and it functions as a 2-D representation of the 3-D world. What does the cartographer want you to see? This project is a series of interviews on an interactive map. It is built on open source software and Google Earth. The idea of of the interactive map allows one to layer and juxtapose information to make connections with our knowledge of the world. It explores what people think the concept of maps and its functions means to them from artistic to functional – a map about maps. This interactive system can bring people together, virtually sharing their knowledge, thoughts and opinions. Continue reading

[Image: Robert Duffy] Leonardo Day at Berkeley Big Bang 2008: Remix: From Science to Art and Back in the Digital Age :: June 3, 2008 :: UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

Join us in Berkeley for a three-day symposium and festival of new media and art hosted by the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and the Berkeley Center for New Media. This event is timed to link with 01SJ: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge, so come spend the week in the Bay Area and be part of the biggest explosion of new media art in the nation. [On June 2, Embodied Media, the first of a two-part symposium.] June 3: Continue reading

Migrating Reality :: April 4-5, 2008 :: Gallerie der Kuenste, Berlin. Migrating is reality. Reality is migrating. Migrating Reality is a live platform to discuss the mixing and remixing of art forms and digital data flows within the context of the current worldwide reality of migration.

Since March 1, in cooperation with the online zine balsas.cc for media and technology, we have focused on the migration between reality, media, technologies, art, spaces, disciplines, politics, and networks. Migration interests us in cultural and technological aspects as well as in aspects of the movement of different objects and subjects. Continue reading

[Image: “The Cornfield” – Second Life’s prison simulator] “Abstract: This Exegesis and accompanying artworks are the culmination of research conducted into the existence of surveillance in virtual worlds. A panoptical model has been used, and its premise tested through the extension into these communal spaces. Issues such as data security, personal and corporate privacy have been investigated, as has the use of art as a propositional mode. This Exegesis contains existing and new theoretical arguments and observations that have aided the development of research outcomes; a discussion of action research as a methodology; and questionnaire outcomes assisting in understanding player perceptions and concerns. Continue reading

ANEMICodeCINEMA by Andy Deck - Media Player Haters Unite :: ANEMICodeCINEMA is a free interpretation of privatized data streams, digital encryption and encoding mired in secrecy and exclusivity. It’s a premonition of future histories lost in translation. Already video and audio are often unusable and scrambled for people who do not use the dominant operating system. As time passes and data encryption secrets are forgotten, this fractured experience of today’s audio and video may become the norm rather than the exception. Continue reading