SIGGRAPH 2009: Information Aesthetics Showcase

For over 35 years, the SIGGRAPH conference has been the premier venue for showcasing work in computer graphics and interactive techniques, and it has a long history of recognizing beauty in concert with technology. For SIGGRAPH 2009, the conference has developed Information Aesthetics: a new thematic area for talks and exhibitions.

The emergent field of information aesthetics combines a rich variety of technical and artistic disciplines. Designers and new media artists are joining scientific visualization, informatics, and medical imaging specialists to create purposive, predictive, and creative representations of information. SIGGRAPH 2009 is highlighting this field in recognition of the increasingly prominent role that information visualization and data graphics are assuming in our digitally mediated culture.

The 2009 Information Aesthetics Showcase includes 2D and 3D prints, interactive and presentational screen-based works, multimodal installation environments, and physical objects instantiating information. In keeping with this year’s theme, Networking the Senses, the works shown here engage not only the visual, but also auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modalities. The relationship to information expressed in these exemplary pieces ranges from straightforward visualization of data to fanciful re-invention and transformation of it.

Presenters include computational journalists, visual and material artists, biological and neuro-scientists, graphic designers, scientific visualization developers, historians, cultural theorists, and digital media center collaborators.

The Information Aesthetics theme extends beyond the exhibits themselves. Informal artists talks provide discussion opportunities to visitors in the gallery. In addition, within the main conference program we are hosting a formal, curated panel discussion on The State of Aesthetic Computing or Info-Aesthetics, as well as offering three practitioner-oriented developer talks. Finally, we are very pleased to welcome Steve Duenes, Graphics Editor from the New York Times, as one of this year’s Keynote Speakers. His works remind us just why Information Aesthetics matters just as much in everyday life as it does in academe or industry.

It is our hope that by bringing this diverse community of innovators together at SIGGRAPH 2009 we can help establish connections that develop this interdisciplinary emergent community further within SIGGRAPH and beyond.

Victoria Szabo Duke University

• 
  Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
  24X7@PHL: Vectoring
  Artist(s): [Trempe]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [2D & Wall-Hung]
  A_B_peace & terror etc. The computational aesthetics of love & hate
  Artist(s): [Crnokrak]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  C-loc Software
  Artist(s): [Noguchi]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Cultural Analytics Research Environment
  Artist(s): [Manovich, Douglass, Magdalin, Kuester, and Yamaoko]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  decibel 151
  Artist(s): [Magas, Stewart, and Fields]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Height Restriction
  Artist(s): [Trempe]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality]
  I'm not there: extending the range of human sense to benefit wildlife corridors
  Artist(s): [McNamara, Parke, Lafayette, and Galanter]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Landmark Status
  Artist(s): [Trempe]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  MSNBC Hurricane Tracker
  Artist(s): [Migurski]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Multiscale Meta Shape Grammar Objects for "...a grain of sand turns the balance" and ATLAS in silico
  Artist(s): [West, Lewis, Schulze, Singh, Margolis, Gossmann, and Tenedorio]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [3D & Sculpture]
  News Knitter
  Artist(s): [Kurbak and Yavuz]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Oakland Crimespotting
  Artist(s): [Migurski and Carden]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Animation & Video]
  OpenStreetMap 2008: A Year of Edits
  Artist(s): [Bertram]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Design]
  Out of Statistics: Beyond Legal
  Artist(s): [Xu and Zhai]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality]
  Passing "Place for Games"
  Artist(s): [Tsoupikova and Kooima]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Installation]
  Rhythm Analysis; A Temporal Stereopsis Urban Telecommunication Data Topography
  Artist(s): [Han]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Animation & Video]
  Stoc (Stock Ticker Orbital Comparison)
  Artist(s): [Grant, Spencer, and Armijo]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced
  Artist(s): [Palazzi, Zuniga-Shaw, and Forsythe]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Design]
  The Katrina Project: NO-LA
  Artist(s): [Vesna, Yan, Lucas, Andersson, Townes, Colubri, and Benson]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  The MBTI Map
  Artist(s): [Jang, Kang, Bae, Ko, Lee, and Lee]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  The Sky Oracle: Immersive Flowchart Representation for the Annexation of Tibet
  Artist(s): [Fishwick, Henderson, Fresh, Kamhawi, Coffey, and Hamilton]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  Touch the Invisibles
  Artist(s): [Watanabe and Kusachi]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Animation & VideoInstallation]
  Towards the Memory Tower
  Artist(s): [Senior]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Design]
  Visual Genealogy: Mr. PARK, Myrang-Hwarok Clan
  Artist(s): [Park and Choe]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Design]
  VisualPoetry - Generative Graphic Design for Poetry on the Road
  Artist(s): [Mueller]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
• 
  Type: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
  well-formed.eigenfactor: Visualizing Information Flow in Science
  Artist(s): [Stefaner, Rosvall, and Bergstrom]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  
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