Workshop series looks at data visualization science, technology and art
A cross-disciplinary discussion of data visualization involving Purdue faculty and students from science, engineering and liberal arts is the goal of a series of workshops taking place in September and October.
The sessions are scheduled for 7-8 p.m. Tuesdays through Oct. 4 at the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization, located off the tunnel between the Purdue Memorial Union and the Stewart Center.
The workshops are free and no registration is required, although seating is limited to 50 people. For more information contact Professor Shannon McMullen, smcmullen@purdue.edu. More information also will be available at the Purdue Electronic and Time-Based Art Program website: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/vpa/etb/.
The sessions are modeled after a National Science Foundation-funded seminar at Purdue in the spring 2011 “Images of Nature.” The seminar brought science, art and technology to bear on a common theme – the creation of work responding to the changing natural environment – and explored such ideas as use of the scientific method in art and creativity in scientific exploration.
The visualization sessions likewise will examine data visualization from scientific, technical and artistic perspectives with an eye to breaking new ground in the field. The workshops also are an opportunity to learn about cutting-edge visual production tools for research and artistic projects, and a networking opportunity for future collaboration and continued exchange.
Presenters will come from a variety of fields, among them scientific computing, computer graphics technology, communications and rhetoric.
McMullen, a visual and performing arts professor, says the series also compliments her graduate level course “Form Follows Data,” in which students from the Program in Electronic and Time-Based Art, Computer Graphics Technology and Engineering Education are exploring creative production through the lens of data visualization in partnership with the Envision Center.
McMullen is an organizer of the workshop series with visual and performing arts Professor Fabian Winkler and David Braun, a research computing specialist who directs the Envision Center, ITaP’s data visualization and virtual reality facility.