Undergraduate animation students at the Maryland Institute College of Art teamed up with scientists from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope to produce a set of animations on several astronomy topics. Here, the authors describe the process and discuss the results, educational benefits and the cross-cultural experience. These animations are available for free online.

A cross-disciplinary team of artists and scientists is working to illuminate the detailed properties of dynamic coloration in squid, cuttlefish and octopus. They have synergistically fused the 3D animation software Blender with scientific bio-imaging techniques to better visualize the organization of cephalopod skin and its intricate web of nerve connections. This paper presents the practical benefits of the collaboration: how scientific detail has enriched artistic appreciation of these exquisite marine species and how artistic visualization has enriched scientific understanding of how cephalopods dynamically manipulate color.

One of the many questions surrounding Leonardo’s Mona Lisa concerns the landscape visible in the portrait’s background: Does it depict an imagination of Leonardo’s mind, a real world landscape or the motif of a plane canvas that hung in Leonardo’s studio, behind the sitter? By analyzing divergences between the Mona Lisa and her Prado double that was painted in parallel but from another perspective the authors found mathematical evidence for the motif-canvas hypothesis: The landscape in the Prado version is 10% increased but otherwise nearly identical with the Louvre one, which indicates both painters used the same plane motif-canvas as reference.

The author discusses his compositional practice, which relies on the application of information-processing technologies to problematize conventions of musical meaning.

Currently human-computer interaction (HCI) is primarily focused on human-centric interactions. However, people experience many non-human-centric interactions every day. Interactions with nature can reinforce the importance of our relationship with nature. This paper presents the author’s vision of human-computer-biosphere interaction (HCBI) to facilitate non-human-centric interaction with the goal of moving society towards environmental sustainability.

The authors propose that techniques from art and design can be used within social science research as part of a speculative methodology and provide a set of heuristic principles for speculative method, characterizing it as processual, performative, playful, promising and propositional.

This article discusses some ideas around video and color through nature, landscape and technology. This is related to experimental film and video practices in Europe and North America and various aesthetic traditions.

The author reflects on how her work in both kinetic and static arts has influenced—and continues to influence—her approach to her art practice as a whole.

Disc Jockeys (DJs) have worked with large collections of electronic media since the advent of file sharing in the 1990s. Each week, or more often, they generate fresh sets of material from the collection and present them publicly. The DJ’s interaction with the digital collection has to support recall and encounter in a creative flow. Their system for retrieving and using information enables learning, stimulates creativity, and allows responsive presentation and publication. The DJ’s model of information interaction is a read/write engagement in the archive: a system of authorship that reuses pre-authored material. It is transferable to other data-representations.

The Visions Project K. 1 is an interactive video installation consisting of a volumetric device that allows visualization of 3D objects and their interaction with the user in real time. Objects are projected onto a pyramidal structure with an LCD monitor, and due to the special geometry of the structure, they look like real 3D objects floating inside the pyramid for any observer from any direction. The modular design of the components of the structure enables the user to build his or her own device DIY (Do It Yourself).

The concept of abstract art as “world language” became famous after documenta II (1959). Abstract art was considered as universally comprehensible and independent of cultural, political or historical contexts. However, this was never explicitly tested empirically. If these assumptions were true, there should be higher intersubjective coherence in perceiving abstract paintings compared to representational art. In order to test this hypothesis, the authors recorded the eye-movements of 38 participants and collected information on their cognitive and emotional evaluations. The results suggest that the concept of abstract art as a universal language was not confirmed and needs to be revised.

This paper focuses on the rhythmic interrelationships between the sensing body and the sensing computer. The author proposes that the term kinesthetic empathy provides a useful way of deepening our understanding of feedback and control rhythms.

Serial music, which is mainly non-tonal, superimposes compositional freedom onto an unusually rigorous process of pitch-sequence transformations based on ‘tone rows’: a row is usually a sequence of notes using each of the 12 chromatic pitches once. Compositional freedom comprises forming chords from the sequences, and in multi-strand music, also in simultaneously presenting different segments of pitch-sequences. The present project coded a real-time serial music composer for automatic or interactive music performance. This Serial Keyboardist Collaborator can perform keyboard music which is impossible for a human to realize. Surprisingly, it was also useful in making more tonal music based on the same rigorous pitch-sequence generation.

This is an account of the author's three-and-a-half decade obsession with ASCII art in which he progresses from a manual typewriter to computers, pixel shaders, real-time animation, and a new variant of color ASCII art that can be reproduced on a manual typewriter using only three or four colored ribbons.

Over the past three years, the author has pursued a method for developing interpretive exhibit materials that synthesizes ethnographic approaches, critical analysis, and creative practice. The term “mimetic inquiry” is used to describe this method, drawing on articulations of mimesis as a “thematic concept” that tracks through the history of aesthetics as a process of representation-with-transformation. The author also discusses the genesis and goals of mimetic inquiry.

As artists working with clinical radiological data how might we identify and develop new models of working within the context of disease communication? Historically, we can identify various models of mediating human inner body spaces. This practice-led research explores how a blended model of 3-D CGI image creation can result in imagery that moves beyond the didactic.

This paper outlines emerging research concerned with visualizing online news archives. The authors make a distinction between the use of visualization for data journalism and the evolution of reporting on current affairs over extended periods of time.

The Appropriate Sound Effector (ASE) is a small, portable module to be attached to an existing acoustic instrument to modify its original sound, giving it an electronic timbre. It is composed of all of the basic components necessary for the generation of electronic sound and uses an open-source-based microcontroller in the module to maximize its expandability and for ease of future development. This project eventually showed a different possibility for appropriate technology when ASE is applied to musical applications.

Tele Echo Tube (TET) is a speaking tube installation that allows acoustic interaction with a deep mountain echo through the slightly vibrating lampshade-like interface. TET allows users to interact with the mountain echo in real time through an augmented echo sounding experience with the vibration over satellite data network. This novel interactive system can create an imaginable presence of a mythological creature in undeveloped natural locations beyond our cultural and imaginable boundaries.