Monet, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Picasso, … and Data Visualization? It is readily apparent how computers and advanced graphics continue to transform the landscape of modern media and entertainment. The science of examining, dissecting, and transforming the natural and man-made world into computer generated images has brought us astounding animation and pictures. Not to be relegated to the world of cinematography in films such of Avatar or in the lastest generation of computer games, the beauty and impact of data visualization techniques are now becoming more mainstream for museum goers as well.
Highlighted in a recent New York Times article, the Museum of London recently opened a new exhibit showcasing an early example of data visualization from the late 1800s – a color coded mapping of poverty data across London by British philanthropist, Charles Booth. The NYT article also references other opportunities to discover and explore data visualization as an art within the National Design Triennial “Why Design Now” exhibit at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum and a future exhibit, “Talk to Me”, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
If you can’t make it to London or New York City, the Internet acts as a living museum as well, offering a menagerie of various subjects with which to explore the virtuosity of data visualization. This is especially true as more Web sites open up and offer APIs for others to access and explore their information resources. Using the New York Times again as an example, Canadian artist Jer Thorpe has posted on Flickr a series of images using specific words published over a period of time. Another interesting aggregation of visual displays gleaning data across art and science topics can be found at this PingMag site. Time lapsed imagery is also increasingly being used, producing an organic feel to data, such as this site’s view of Lisbon’s traffic patterns.
Data has long been the core to science and discovery, and is increasingly bleeding into the world of Art. Just take Da Vinci’s famous Fibonacci drawing. While its design is founded on mathematical principal, you can’t help but admire the beauty of a sea shell.
