SIGGRAPH 2009: Information Aesthetics Showcase

August 3 - 7, 2009

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

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  24X7@PHL: Vectoring
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23809')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [2D & Wall-Hung]
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  A_B_peace & terror etc. The computationa...
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [2D & Wall-Hung]
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  C-loc Software
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23811')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  Cultural Analytics Research Environment
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23816')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  decibel 151
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23823')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  Height Restriction
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23827')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  I'm not there: extending the range of hu...
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23830')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality]
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  Landmark Status
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23838')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  MSNBC Hurricane Tracker
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23846')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  Multiscale Meta Shape Grammar Objects fo...
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23848')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  News Knitter
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23852')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [3D & Sculpture]
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  Oakland Crimespotting
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  OpenStreetMap 2008: A Year of Edits
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Animation & Video]
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  Out of Statistics: Beyond Legal
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Design]
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  Passing "Place for Games"
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality]
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  Rhythm Analysis; A Temporal Stereopsis U...
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Installation]
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  Stoc (Stock Ticker Orbital Comparison)
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Animation & Video]
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  Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, ...
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  The Katrina Project: NO-LA
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Design]
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  The MBTI Map
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  The Sky Oracle: Immersive Flowchart Repr...
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23867')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  Touch the Invisibles
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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  Towards the Memory Tower
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Animation & Video] [Installation]
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  Visual Genealogy: Mr. PARK, Myrang-Hwaro...
  [pods name="person" limit="2" where="artist_works.ID IN ('23909')" orderby="last_name" template="Artist List Template"]
  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Design]
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  VisualPoetry - Generative Graphic Design...
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Design]
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  well-formed.eigenfactor: Visualizing Inf...
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  [SIGGRAPH 2009]
  Categories: [Interactive & Monitor-Based]
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Title: Curated Panel Discussion: The State of Aesthetic Computing or Info-Aesthetics
Author(s):
• Andrew Wande Moere
• Michael Kelly
• Victoria Vesna
• Paul Fishwick
• Kenneth A. Huff

Category: Art Panel / Roundtable
Abstract Summary:

Aesthetic computing is one of several related new fields: info-aesthetics, database aesthetics, network aesthetics, and software aesthetics. What are their similarities and differences? What are the aesthetic issues driving them, and how are they linked to technological developments? And what exactly is the role of aesthetics is this context?

[View PDF]


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Title: GreenLite Dartmouth: Unplug or the Polar Bear Gets It
Author(s):
• Evan Tice

Category: Art Panel / Roundtable
Abstract Summary:

GreenLite Dartmouth visualizes complex, real-time energy data using interactive animations to create an emotional relationship between energy use and its e ects. When electricity use is low, for example, a polar bear is happy and playful. As more energy is used, the bear becomes distressed, and his well-being is endangered.

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Title: Synchronous Objects for One Flat Thing, reproduced
Author(s):
• Maria Palazzi
• Norah Zuniga-Shaw

Category: Art Panel / Roundtable

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Title: well-formed.eigenfactor: Consideration is Design and Data Analysis
Author(s):
• Moritz Stefaner
• Martin Rosvall
• Carl Bergstrom

Category: Art Panel / Roundtable
Abstract Summary:

This talk discusses the rationale, process, and mechanisms behind the interactive visualizations for the well-formed.eigenfactor project.

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