LookingOutwards-08 – Page 6 – [OLD SEMESTER] 15-104 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice

Looking Outwards / Brian House

Brian House is an accomplished artist working with ‘human and nonhuman systems’ to create works that translate data into visual and audible experiences. He studied at multiple universities, earning degrees in Computer Science and Computer Music/Multimedia [Columbia (bachelors), Chalmers tekniska högskola (masters), and Brown (PhD)], and is currently an art professor at Lewis and Clark College in Portland.

House’s methods of data collection, as well as his productions, are multidisciplinary, focusing not only on the existing rhythms and natural trends of environmental dynamics but on the human impacts on these trends. His work spans past, present, and future, visual art, music, and technology. Much of his work– if not, all– is focused on emphasizing the importance of environmental awareness. Despite being grounded in science and data collection, these works are historically, culturally, and politically aware. When speaking about his work, House tends to provide such context prior to explanations of a given project’s approach, method, objective, and result. His speech for Eyeo 2018 opened with an acknowledgment of the Indigenous land upon which the venue was built. I admire the conscientiousness in both his work and his presentations, as well as the common thread of translating the world around us into something we can hear. House’s projects are extremely powerful, moving, and at the same time, more educational than I had expected.

My favorite project of his is Animas (2017). The objective of this work was to convert the real-time fluctuations of the Animas river’s heavy metal content into audible vibrational tones. Collecting data through water sensors installed in the river, House suspended sheets of the four heavy metals which had surpassed safe levels in the Animas. Each sheet was rigged with a sensor and amplifier which projected the individual frequencies of the metals in correspondence with their level fluctuations in the Animas.

A brief sound clip of Animas.

Water sensor installed in the Animas River to collect real-time data.

The Creative Practice of an Individual: Amanda Cox

Alexia Forsyth
15-104
October 25, 2022

Amanda Cox presented for the Eyeo Festival in 2018 where she discussed processes, practices, and lessons she has learned through her career. She is the editor of a feature of The New York Times called The Upshot. It launched in 2014 and is aimed to provide news and commentary via graphics and charts. Amanda graduated from St.Olaf in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in math and economics and graduated from the University of Washington in 2005 with a master’s degree in statistics. She won the National Design Award in 2009 and the Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award in 2012. I really admire Amanda’s work because it is useful and practical. Through her data visualization, she has been able to make a difference in media politics and information distribution. She worked on a project that measured the percentage of children who grew up rich and how their wealth changed as an adult. She looked into differences in race and incarceration rate. In the 2016 election, her team worked on a project called ‘Chance of Winning Presidency’ that repetitively forecasted the likelihood of Clinton and Trump’s success. Although the code behind each of her projects is complicated the outer visual is simple and user-friendly. She explained the impact and importance of her work more than the code behind it, avoiding using intimidating jargon.

Looking Outwards-07

Wind Map is a living portrait of the wind currents over the U.S., where it conveys the movement of the air through visual motion. The creators, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, wanted the artwork to reflect the real-world and how its “emotional meaning” changes on a daily basis. For instance, on calmer days with little to no wind, it can can represent the “soothing mediation” of the environment, whereas days that are more rampant (e.g. hurricanes) the visuals are much more sporadic and ominous. I can see how the artists’ creative sensibilities have manifested into their work as they have used their project for artistic exploration within dramatic patterns and delicate tracery of wind, combining weather elements and art together.

The two artists created this work through surface wind data collection of the National Digital Forecast Database, which are near-term forecasts revised once per hour. Further, the technique is implemented entirely in HTML and JavaScript, which is another facet of what I like about the piece because it is what we are learning right now!