:: Biblioteca Digital de Ecopsicologia (BDE)

Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production

Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Scholars Compass

Theses and Dissertations

Graduate School

2015

Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production

Jennifer E. Figg

Virginia Commonwealth University

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Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Media Art and Text at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Jennifer Figg

M.F.A. University of California at Santa Barbara, 2007

B.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design, 1996

Director: Dr. Eric Garberson

Director of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Media, Art, and Text (MATX),

Associate Professor of Art History

Virginia Commonwealth University

Richmond, VA

December, 2015

Acknowledgment

Writing this dissertation has been a significant academic challenge, and I would

have been unable to complete the work without the guidance of my committee and

support from my friends and family. It is to them that I owe my deepest gratitude.

I am grateful for the dedication of my dissertation director and advisor, Dr. Eric

Garberson, who supported my work with a commitment to excellence and scholarly

generosity.

I want to thank my dissertation committee: Dr. Marcel Cornis-Pope, Pam Turner,

and Steven Vitiello. Without everyone’s encouragement and insightful comments with

this project, in all its versions, it would not exist.

I most want to thank my husband, Matthew, for his love, kindness, and sacrifice.

Thank you to my son, Xavier, for inspiring me to complete the work as soon as

possible;

A special thank you to Kristine and Nancy;

And to my family near and far.

Thank you for your inspiration.

iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ………………………………………………………………………….1

Scope ………………………………………………………………………...3

Stipulation …………………………………………………………………..10

Terms and Principal Concepts ……………………………………………....14

Information Visualization …………………………………………………...17

Dynamic and Static Data ……………………………………………23

Maps, Diagrams, and Graphs as Information Visualization ………...26

Info-Vis and EV: Strategies and Functions …………………………29

The Aesthetics of Info-Vis: Pragmatic and Artistic Visualization ….34

Creative Project ……………………………………………………………..37

Chapter Overview …………………………………………………………...40

Chapter One: Screen-Based Eco-Visualizations ……………………40

Chapter Two: Multi-Modal Eco-Visualizations …………………….41

Chapter Three: Sculpting Corn Production …………………………42

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………..43

Chapter One: Screen-Based Eco-Visualizations

Introduction………………………………………………………………….45

EcoArtTech: Air Quality as Visualized by Eclipse…………………………47

Seeing and Changing Atmospheric Conditions……………………..47

Protecting Visibility in National Parks……………………………...48

Eclipse ………………………………………………………………53

Keith Deverell: Visualizing Energy Use with Building Run………………..58

The Shifting Landscape of Energy………………………………….58

Building Run………………………………………………………...60

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………..67

Chapter Two: Multi-Modal Eco-Visualizations

Introduction …………………………………………………………………69

Andrea Polli: Visualizing Atmospheric Pollution …………………………..71

Cloud Car …………………………………………………………...78

Particle Falls ………………………………………………………..81

Nathalie Miebach: Taking the Long View with The Sandy Rides ………….84

The Sandy Rides …………………………………………………….88

O Fortuna, Sandy Spins ……………………………………………..90

The Last Ride ………………………………………………………..92

The Ride ……………………………………………………………..94

Natalie Jeremijenko: xDesign for the Future ………………………………..98

Mussel Choir ………………………………………………………..103

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….111

Chapter Three: Sculpting Corn Production

Introduction …………………………………………………………………113

Creative Project: Sculpting Corn Production ……………………………....116

Data Collection and Methodology ………………………………….116

Past Project: Subrural ……………………………………………...126

Design Rationale: Spiraling Corn Production ……………………..128

S.C.P.: Reading the Data and Preliminary Conclusions ……………129

Design Rationale: High-Fructose Towers ………………………….130

H-F.T.: Reading the Data and Preliminary Conclusions …………...131

Design Rationale: Biotech Silo ……………………………………..132

B.S.: Reading the Data and Preliminary Conclusions ……………...133

Relevance in the Field ……………………………………………………...134

Future Research and Creative Works ………………………………………139

Collaborative Practice ……………………………………………...141

Ongoing Project: Kinetic Light Instruments ………………………..141

Future EV Project: Desert Cricket ………………………………….145

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………….147

Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………….150

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………...156

Figures Cited ………………………………………………………………………..184

Abstract

EXPANDING ECO-VISUALIZATION: SCULPTING CORN PRODUCTION

By Jennifer Figg, Ph.D.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Media Art and Text at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015.

Director: Dr. Eric Garberson

Director of the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program in Media, Art, and Text (MATX),

Associate Professor of Art History

This dissertation expands upon the definition of eco-visualization artwork. Eco-

visualization (EV) is a subset of information visualization that concerns itself with

visualizing data regarding the environment. EV was originally defined in 2006 by Tiffany

Holmes as a way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental

resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. I assert that the final forms of EV

artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and can differ in terms of media

used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms that

communicate interpreted environmental information. There are two main categories of

EV: one that is predominantly screen-based and another that employs a variety of modes

of representation to visualize environmental information.

EVs are political acts, situated in a particularly charged climate of rising

awareness, operating within the context of environmentalism and sustainability. I discuss

a variety of EV works within the frame of ecopsychology, including dynamic projects

that are screen-based, such as EcoArtTech’s Eclipse and Keith Deverell’s Building Run;

and projects that do not rely on the screen but use a variety of materials and processes for

the final presentation, including Andrea Polli’s Cloud Car and Particle Falls; Nathalie

Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides; and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir.

The range of EV works provided models for my creative project, Sculpting Corn

Production, and a foundation from which I developed a creative methodology. Working

to defeat my experience of solastalgia, Sculpting Corn Production is a series of discrete

paper sculptures focusing on American industrial corn farming. It addresses climate

change and engages with specific datasets through sculptural form in a way that broadens

the scope of EV. This EV also functions as a way for me to understand our devastated

monoculture landscapes and the politics, economics, and related areas of ecology of our

food production. Sculpting Corn Production is a foundation for future work through the

development of concept, the exploration of process, the interpretation / translation of

data, and the communication of information through form.

Introduction

This dissertation, Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production, stems from

diverse research interests that connect my pursuits in contemporary art, data visualization, and

ecology. In 2009, I first became aware that corn, in many forms, is in most of the foods on my

plate, in the fuel for my car, and in manufactured objects in my environment. In addition, I was

literally surrounded at the time by miles and miles of Ohio cornfields. Despite this seeming

abundance, I heard about reports of food (corn) scarcity and of rising costs of grain worldwide.

Many were going hungry with food prices having more than doubled. This realization sparked

my curiosity about the American agriculture industry, specifically the production of corn and

corn by-products. Fueled by a desire to see and understand how corn came to be such a dominant

ingredient in food and consumer goods, I began searching for answers. A staggering amount of

interrelated information is available from a variety of sources, and it is this information, and

associated systems beyond factory farming, that continue to pique my interest. Visualizing these

networks by drawing connections between disparate and unconnected data sets has produced

new meaning and helped me to have a better understanding of the politics, economics, and

ecology of our food production.

Information visualization is a popular topic in contemporary digital culture, and it is a

key factor in business decisions, government policy, and art production. Data is being generated

all around us all the time from every digital process. Systems, sensors, and mobile devices

transfer information about the environment, from water temperature to wind speed, from energy

consumption to air quality, from bat habitat to commercial fishing practices. But data is just

substrate, a building block for further understanding. Alan Kay, a computer scientist, asserts,

“the interesting future's not about data at all - it's about meaning" (2014). Making meaning by

finding surprising connections within environmental data is the strength of information

visualization, and eco-visualization in particular.

Eco-visualization is a relatively new field. In this Introduction I set the scope for what I

mean by eco-visualization and lay out definitions of my key terms. I will define eco-visualization

as a sub-genre of information visualization and situate my assertion that the final form of eco-

visualization artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and that in fact, the small

amount of literature on the subject is too limiting in its definition. In expanding upon the

literature I will provide brief introductions to the concepts I draw from ecopsychology, a driving

force of environmentalism.

I offer a broadened definition of eco-visualization, through an overview of important

areas of overlap and difference in eco-visualization: structural issues, including the content type

of data sets both dynamic and static, and media both digital and non-digital; functional issues,

including approaches to form; and aesthetic issues, including visuality, site-specificity, and the

ways in which eco-visualization may offer a critique of contemporary cultural practices. Within

this context, two categories of EV emerge. The first category includes dynamic projects that rely

on the screen as a major element of the work. I discuss Martin Wattenburg’s and Fernanda

Viégas’ Wind Map; EcoArtTech’s (Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint) Eclipse; and Keith

Deverell’s Building Run. The second category includes projects that do not rely on the screen but

use a variety of materials and processes for the final presentation. I analyze Andrea Polli’s Cloud

Car and Particle Falls; Nathalie Miebach’s The Sandy Rides series; and Natalie Jeremijenko’s

Mussel Choir. I discuss my own eco-visualization work, Sculpting Corn Production, as a

foundation for my future work, and how it functions in regards to form and content in

relationship to the field – a nascent field that is dominated by concerns of energy use, pollution,

and resource preservation. Finally, I conclude by articulating possible futures for eco-

visualization.

Scope

Eco-visualization (EV) is a subset of information visualization that concerns itself with

visualizing data regarding the environment. Early EV works were device-based objects

displaying information from sensors, designed to read and relate granular information, and were

primarily for individual users in their home and during their daily activity.1 They evolved to

screen-based works that relied on computers and the Internet as a live source of information; and

there are a number of EV artworks that go beyond the screen as a mode of data presentation. It is

precisely these projects without screens which exist beyond the boundaries set by EV literature

that I claim to be EV in terms of both their content and function.

Analog, non-digital precedents to streaming data-presentations of environmental

information date back to early cartography and map-making, where terrain-based information

was delineated through line, color, and text. As a media practice, EV developed from within the

broader field of information visualization, wherein complex systems of information are presented

visually.

As an art practice, EV is rooted in Environmental Art of the early 1960s and 1970s,2

noted for the works of artists like Robert Smithson, Agnes Denes, Walter de Maria, Michael

1 See SNUPI, Cohn et al., 2010; ElectriSense, Gupta et al. 2010; ViridiScope, Kim et al. 2009; GasSense,

2 “Environmental art” is work that emerged in the 1960’s that consciously broke from the constraints of the

gallery to explore language and metaphor in the terrain of land and landscape. The Environmental Art movement

developed from the evolution of thought on the environment, which considered the environment as a physical place

and then as a broader concept, which includes ecosystems and related issues. Environmental art is associated with

physical, external conditions and surroundings, and is used as an umbrella term that encompasses “eco-art.” Eco-art

is characterized by the interdependence of organisms, and addresses environmental issues and often involves holds

collaboration and restoration as key facets of the work. Foundational sources include Land and Environmental Art

Heizer, Joseph Beuys, Hans Haacke, Nancy Holt, and Meg Webster. These artists addressed

“nature” as a social construction, shattering the image of the natural world as an untouched entity

once thought to be beyond human control. Since the 1970’s, the potential for vast environmental

change reasserted itself within the social imagination. As the discussion of environmental crises

increased in frequency, concerns regarding rising global energy demands, increasing costs and

limited natural resources contributed to a feeling of vulnerability and a shared concern for a

healthy ecology. Our perception of our physical environment as lasting and steadfast began to

erode:

The resource triangle of water-energy-food, relatively stable for the past several

generations, is now rapidly changing; under a business as usual scenario, the

world will require 40% more energy and 70% more food by 2050. Increasing

volatility and upward pressures on commodities and natural resources—most

importantly water—is becoming the “new normal” that business planners and

other organizations will need to confront. Overlaying these challenges are the

significant issues of social equity and development. (World Environment Center

[WEC], 2012).

The causes of environmental change, whether agreed upon as a result of human actions or

otherwise, continue to be debated. However, there is considerable evidence that the Earth is

facing global warming, and that we risk unpredictable, highly damaging impacts to our

ecosystem.3 It is beyond the scope of this Introduction to explore why there is a disconnect

between scientific knowledge and public perception, except to acknowledge that there is a rift.

Artists are actively addressing continuing environmental damage and change, and exploring

ways to visualize environmental data in ways that are expressive, educational, and challenging.

(Kastner and Wallis, 2010), which documents the Land Art and Environmental art movements to the present. To

Life! Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet (Weintraub, 2012) discusses the contemporary eco art movement.

3 Although the public is becoming aware that climate change increases the likelihood of certain local

disasters, many do not yet understand that there is a small but real chance of abrupt, unpredictable, and potentially

irreversible changes with highly damaging impacts around the world. The public also believes that scientists are in

disagreement, however, about 97% of climate scientists have concluded that humans are changing the climate

(AAAS, 2014).

These aesthetically powerful artworks reformulate social space to support environmental

awareness. One approach is through eco-visualization artwork.

“Eco-visualization” is a term coined by artist Tiffany Holmes in 2006, which was further

developed in later essays. Holmes is a producer of EV artwork and a Professor in the Art and

Technology Studies Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She regards EV as

a distinct genre within information visualization:

Eco-visualization offers a novel approach to display the real time consumption

statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological

literacy. Therefore, eco-visualizations could be data-driven animations that

display ecological information of any sort in real time. (2007).

In its nascent stage of development, Holmes describes the art form in multiple ways

ranging from the specific: EV is “the visual display of vital ecological data,” to those that are

open to interpretation: EV “can take many creative forms” (2006). In early publications, Holmes

holds that EV does not need to be site-specific; rather, it can successfully be deployed in a

variety of spaces with “interdisciplinary methods of raising environmental awareness with

portable software and technology” (2006). Holmes’ concept of technological portability was a

good starting point, but an undeveloped concept as stated. I find it difficult to believe that an EV

artist could “plug into” an existing data stream and produce meaningful, contextualized, site-

specific visualization that would be just as strong if “plugged into” another setting. I say this

because I am making assumptions about this hypothetical situation in that the EV imagery would

be relatively unaltered from space to space. In this scenario, each site’s context, situations and

needs could be vastly different from one another. However, Holmes’ idea of extending EV to

broader contexts or public spaces beyond a singular instance of exhibition indicates the potential

broad-audience accessibility of the art form. In subsequent writings Holmes introduces context

as an important aspect of EV: “artists have a fundamental role to play in creating work that

‘translates’ site-specific environmental data” (2007a).

The concept of site-specificity is a moving target, addressed in part by the art historian

and curator Miwon Kwon. Kwon articulates that early site-specific artworks were directed by

their context and were either interruptive or assimilative in nature. An interruptive model is one

where the artwork functions as a critical intervention into the existing code of the site. This

concept is contrasted with an assimilative model, where the artwork is integrated into the

existing environment, producing a unified space of cohesion. Site-specific artwork relates to its

physical determinants, including the proportion and shape of rooms, plazas, buildings, and parks,

and their associated conditions, including changeable traffic patterns, lighting, and ventilation.

Cultural framework also defines a site: the social matrix of class, race, gender, and sexuality of

the viewing subject define the phenomenological parameters of the space. Site encompasses

interrelated spaces and economies that are open to social, economic, and political pressures,

including spaces of art practice (studios, museums, and cities), art history and criticism, and the

global market exchange. Kwon asserts that to be site-specific is to decode and / or recode the

institutional conventions in order to expose their hidden motivations, revealing the ways that

social institutions manipulate art’s meaning thereby controlling its cultural and economic value

(88). Site-specific art has evolved to anti-visual modes, including informational, textual,

expositional, and didactic practices; it has also developed into the immaterial, including gestures,

events, and performances, such as the artist collective Midwest Radical Cultural Corridor’s

Monsanto Hearings.4 Site-specific artwork is a critique of culture that is inclusive of non-art

4 The “Monsanto Hearings” are public tribunals wherein the court is a theater to build public understanding.

People and communities present testimony regarding the harmful impact that the Monsanto corporation has on food,

farms, communities, and ecosystems. Existing law, however, has strict limits on who has “standing,” the right to

spaces and non-art issues,5 including urgent social problems such as the ecological crisis (Kwon,

91).

Concern over the environmental crisis brings us back to EV. Almost five years after

asserting that EV could be site-specific, Holmes further refines her definition by stating that EVs

are “art and design works that translate ecological data into easy-to-understand images and

sound...[promoting] sustainability through a shared experience of a real time happening that is

controlled by a computer or associated electronic technology” (2011, 1). Holmes elaborates on

EV, stating that it is a collaborative, interdisciplinary practice that shares environmental data.

A number of EV researchers have offered their general characterizations of EV by

drawing from Holmes’ research. Their definitions range from physicality (EV existing as objects

of technology and as modes of representation) to causality (EV as a social function).

1. Technological Device: Eco-visualizations function as any kind of interactive

device targeted at revealing energy use in order to promote more sustainable

behaviors or foster positive attitudes towards sustainable practices (Pierce et.

al, 2008).

2. Technological Device: EVs shift focus away from frequently hidden

engineering solutions toward the design of graphical interfaces and systems to

actively persuade participants to reduce their consumption through dynamic

feedback. (Odom, 2008)

3. Mode of Representation: Eco-visualizations are various forms of

representation methods such as text, pictures and diagrams in the field (Kim

et. al, 2010).

4. Promoting awareness: Eco-visualizations create energy awareness by using

different phenomena that illustrate energy use (Lofstrom, 2011).

make claims and be heard, and insists that damages be measurable in dollar value. In these hearings all living beings

are potential plaintiffs, including writers, teachers, artists, researchers, farmers as well as any entities they might

chose to represent (Midwest Compass, 2012).

5 Investigating non-art issues includes examination of areas as far away from art as finance, biotech,

geography, urbanism, psychiatry, and the electromagnetic spectrum; by bringing forth the “free play of the faculties”

and the intersubjective experimentation that are characteristic of modern art (Holmes, Brian (2007).

Definitions one and two are oriented toward technological devices, and rely on interactivity or

graphical interfaces that provide feedback to the audience. While the first allows that EV is

dependent on an interactive device of some kind, the second suggests that EV is a computer-

driven form. These first two definitions are in line with Holmes’ original assertion that EV is

associated with technology. However, the third and fourth definitions are the most relevant for

this introduction and my discussion of EV beyond technological devices and computer-mediated

visualization, and open the door to EV projects to be varied modes of representation beyond one

limited to the screen.

Holmes looks to environmental art practice as the art historical context from which EV

emerged, citing the artist Joseph Beuys as a main source of inspiration. For example, Beuys’s

site-specific 1982 project 7000 Eichen (7000 Oaks) brought attention to the effects of ongoing

blight in targeted areas within the German city of Kassel. Part sculpture, part urban renewal, the

massive installation project combined live trees and basalt stone sculpture in areas of economic

disinvestment. Trees were the defining metaphor for 7000 Eichen, standing as elements of

restoration and of time, in contrast to the basalt stone sculpture. Beuys stated that the tree-

planting “will be a regenerative activity; it will be a therapy for all of the problems we are

standing before.... I wished to go completely outside and to make a symbolic start for my

enterprise of regenerating the life of humankind within the body of society and to prepare a

positive future in this context” (Cooke, 2004:1). 7000 Eichen was intended to bring attention to

disenfranchised areas, including slums and places of abandonment. Beuys intended to raise

ecological consciousness and ignite social change within Kassel by visually improving areas of

blight.

Holmes directly referenced Beuys’s physical tree-planting project with her digital site-

specific project, 7000 Oaks and Counting (Jennings, 2007). Located in the National Center for

Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana, Holmes’s conceptually

driven digital animation visualizes a mandala of tree images that grow and disappear

corresponding to data reads of the building’s carbon load. Less electricity used equals more

radiating waves of trees. Rather than metaphors of regeneration, Holmes’ trees were symbolic of

“carbon sinks” - able to soak up carbon dioxide and safely store it in wood, roots, leaves and the

soil though photosynthesis. As an early example of EV, 7000 Oaks and Counting functions as

immediate feedback for building residents. Among the previously stated definitions of EV,

Holmes’ work relates to the first two that state that EV is dependent on technological devices,

and to the fourth, which asserts that EV promotes awareness.

The sub-genre of EV within the discipline of information visualization is evolving and

moving beyond early predominantly screen-based works. A variety of modes of representation

that visualize environmental information are indicative of our changing perception of the human

impact upon the environment and ecology. These works range from screen-based works, as

discussed in Chapter One, to interpretive sculpture, as discussed in Chapter Two. Such

complexity can result from multiple, simultaneous datasets, but equally as well from abstract

conceptual processes. If EV is to have a distinct character apart from other information

visualization projects overall, we need a more discriminating definition — one that accounts for

a range of modes of creation.

Stipulation

According to the generally accepted definitions previously articulated, EV is art that uses

technology to reveal historical information and ecological data. This art may be a mode of

representation including text, pictures, and site-specific diagrams. All EV promotes awareness.

Less than a decade in development, this new field is an emerging interdisciplinary art practice

characterized by the display and interpretation of real-time environmental data, human-use data,

and scientific evidence. Hybrid in essence, EV artwork exists in physical and virtual spaces by

making use of technological innovation to communicate information in a variety of ways. What

all EV artworks have in common is that they use environmental information as raw material. I

assert that EV artworks differ in terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based,

or static two-dimensional forms that communicate this environmental information. They are

creative interpretations of information that visually reveal statistical data and the effects of

political and socio-spatial systems upon the environment. While creating arresting spaces and

objects, the long-term goals of ecological artwork are to encourage environmental awareness,

participant engagement, and a culture of sustainability. While some attempts have been made,

researchers assert that the goals are difficult to measure for a variety of reasons, including time

constraints and subject pool limitations. They look to evaluating EV works within a larger

cultural context.

While EV projects aspire to the lofty ideals of promoting awareness, engagement, and

sustainable behavior, there may be too much importance put on these particular goals while

overlooking of other areas of cultural value. In stating this concern, I am not calling for more

qualitative studies of EV audiences. I assert that EV projects can function beyond their existence

as commodifiable and potentially commercial objects.6 In making this assertion, I am

differentiating here between EV projects that visualize data and the EV artworks that exist as

site-specific objects or discrete sculptures, which function both as a visualization of data as well

as a critique of culture. The assessment of projects should include what the individual projects

set out to accomplish, and whether this is interesting and valuable in the current context. Other

important concerns include if the EV provides a unique perspective or uncovers something

previously hidden, and if the EV engages with, and challenges its social, political and cultural

context.7

EV work has expanded beyond the consumer device to examine a variety of ecological

data in relationship to climate change. Some projects examine energy use, like Tiffany Holmes

screen-based work like 7000 Oaks and Counting (2006),8 and Tega Brain’s floor projection,

including a hacked energy meter, Kilowatt Hours (2013).9 Core ice samples are visualized in

dimensional form with the collective Kuuki’s Distracted.10 Energy production is visualized with

6 There are a number of exploratory systems that visualize energy use that are considered EV projects:

Uneo et al., 2006; Cohn et al., 2010; Cohn et al., 2010a; Gupta et al., 2010; Kim et al., 2009; Peterson et al., 2009;

Spagnolli et al, 2011.

Consumer-level devices are becoming more prevalent for energy-use sensing: Tendril, 2015; The Energy

Detective (TED), 2015; Kill A Watt, 2012; Watts Up, 2012.

For water-use sensing in the home: Campbell et al., 2010; Froelich et al., 2009; Kuznetsov and Paulos,

2010.

7 Eco-feedback technology is an area of extensive research. For a comprehensive review of the field:

DiSalvo et al. 2010. Other related studies include Froehlich et al.; 2012; Foster et al., 2012; Strengers, 2011.

8 7000 Oaks and Counting makes use of real-time energy data to educate and encourage reductions of

resource consumption in a public office building (Gladu, 2012).

9 Kilowatt Hours measures and visualizes the real time energy use of its exhibition space. It is an energy

clock and draws on visual conventions used for the measurement of time. Patterns emerge that can be traced back

over recent hours but eventually become faded and obscured. Over time, the work forgets. Kilowatt Hours draws on

a legacy of formalist cinema and contemplates measurement, feedback and memory as well as probing institutional

transparency and the public availability of data (Brain, 2013).

10 Distracted is a poetic interpretation of scientific ice core samples taken in Antarctica. An installation of

acrylic tubes housing LEDs, resin bubbles, found organic matter and sensors, Distracted is an evocative and

the collaborative HeHe’s large-scale projection, Nuage Vert (2008)11 and Michael Pinsky’s

Monometers.12 The health of the ocean and coral reefs are visualized in Lynette Walworth’s

Rekindling Venus (2012).13 The environment of a waterway was sonified with Flow (2012).14 The

relationship between rainfall and consumption is visualized with Drawing Water (2011).15

EVs are political acts, situated in a particularly charged climate of rising awareness and

human accountability, acknowledging that changing ecologies are not phenomena safe from

human exploitation and intervention. EVs can work collectively to change attitudes toward the

interactive experience, evoking ice, fluids and the notion of change. A number of data sets are used to create the

abstract visualisation and sonification in the work, creating a unique context for understanding human presence and

impact on the planet (Bracks et. al., 2011).

11 Nuage Vert turns vapor emissions of an energy plant into an amorphous projection surface. The system

uses a moving laser beam to draw the outline of the cloud issuing from the plant. It was developed in collaboration

with experts in laser technology, computer science, electrical engineering, energy production, and air quality

monitoring. Works like Nuage Vert connect people to the resources used, and the outside world from where those

resources originate. Nuage Vert also has the ability to take the near unintelligible data of resource consumption and

reinvent it in a way that actually allows consumers to gauge their collective use in order to begin conversation to

challenge the ways in which they consume energy (Evans and Hansen, 2009).

12 The four supporting columns of Belgium’s highest wind turbines were transformed into meters

monitoring the ecological impact of Kortrijk’s annual all-night arts festival. The consumption of energy and water,

and the production of noise and waste were indicated by two rings of projected light that moved up and down the

turbines (Pinsky, 2009).

13 An augmented reality project that uses digital platforms including the web, the smart phone to connect us

to the world’s coral reefs and their plight in a changing climate, it draws on real-time data, video and imagery

(Wallworth, 2009).

14 Flow was a tidemill - a floating timber structure on the River Tyne that generated its own power using a

tidal water wheel. The building housed electro-acoustic musical machinery and instruments which responded to the

constantly changing environment of the river. The work highlighted society’s evolving relationship with our

waterways, and processes of harnessing natural energy (Owl Project and Ed Carter, 2012).

15 Drawing Water shows the relationship between where water falls and where it is consumed within the

United States. It builds images to expose the reality that water is channeled, pumped, and siphoned to locations far

from where it falls. Although the paths are imagined, Drawing Water is based on real data and it reveals a clear truth

about water resources and use. The project is realized as a series of high-resolution print images as well as an

interactive, animated map. Each line in Drawing Water corresponds to a daily rainfall measurement. The length of

the line and its initial placement are determined by the amount of rainfall measured and where it fell. The final

placement and color of each line are determined by the influence of urban water consumers. The more water a city

uses, the stronger its pull on the rainfall. As rainfall is pulled farther from where it fell, it becomes desaturated,

turning from blue to black in print and to white in the projected installation (Wicks, 2011).

environment. To support this assertion I look in particular to the research of Paul Dourish, a

social / computer scientist and professor at the University of California, Irvine. Dourish notes

that the politics of environmental sustainability must move beyond individual action to address

problems of scale in political and environmental mobilization. Dourish argues that an

engagement with environmental issues that separates the environment from other aspects of

social life is restrictive because it may fail to recognize the conditions of its own emergence. He

goes on to assert that environmental engagement is limited if it does not acknowledge questions

of political ecology, environmental justice, and citizenship and governance. EV can be a site of

productive engagement by adopting a scale that goes beyond the individual person and the

individual environmental issue, by being directed towards a collective audience and visualizing

multiple, compound data sets. As mentioned above, early EV works took the form of devices

designed to read and relate granular information, and were primarily for individual users in their

home and during their daily activity. This Introduction, and Chapters One and Two, are primarily

interested in EV projects designed for a broad audience in public settings (including the

Internet). Recent EV projects such as Building Run engage a large audience with feedback

information, which is discussed in Chapter One. Other projects are intended for a collective

audience beyond individual persons, such as Nathalie Miebach’s The Last Ride, which interprets

a variety of environmental information in abstract ways. This project will be discussed in

Chapter Two.

EV artwork is compelling because it uses aesthetic means to draw attention to and

promote understanding of humanity’s impact on the environment. In this introduction, I broaden

the interpretation of EV to include art forms other than screen-based artwork. This opens the

discipline of EV to encompass data-interpretive forms including sculpture. I will frame EV in the

context of eco-psychology, which examines the relationship of environmental issues and mental

health and well-being.

Linked to this discussion are my own concerns about ongoing acute environmental

degradation, an overall sense of cultural disempowerment, and my feeling of general malaise

when considering the future of the Earth’s organic systems. The overarching and driving concept

of my research is my experience of solastalgia. A neologism originating from the philosopher

Glenn Albrecht, “solastalgia” is a combination of the Latin word solacium (comfort) and the

Greek root –algia (pain). Albrecht defined the global condition as intensely localized: “the pain

experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is

under immediate assault…a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at ‘home’” (2004).

The phenomenon is a documented form of psychic distress, or place pathology, resulting from

negatively perceived environmental change. Causally linked to changing climates and

ecosystems, the melancholic psychoterratic illness is exacerbated by a sense of powerlessness

regarding ecological shifts. In addressing solastalgia, I wish to reject simplistic good / bad

dualisms that tend to characterize the larger discussion of ecopsychology, whether they are

generally ontological (nature versus culture) or specifically political (“green” conservationist

behavior versus capitalist consumption). However strong my own feeling of solastalgia, my aim

is not to be didactic or overly judgmental: I remain hopeful for a positive shift in social practice

and behavior.

Terms and Principal Concepts

One facet of this dissertation research and creative project is an overarching sense of

environmentalism. As a general term, it designates the attitudes that inspire behavior advocating

for the preservation, restoration, and improvement of what is collectively agreed upon as the

natural environment. Ideas including the practice of environmental ethics, the pursuit of

biodiversity support, and ways to achieve ecological balance figure predominantly in the broader

discourse about the environment. These concerns conceptually drive EV projects. For present

purposes, environmentalism is an attempt to balance relations amongst humans and the natural

systems on which they depend in order to maintain sustainability, now and in the future. This

eco-centric behavior depends on an individual person’s awareness of the effects of human action

upon the environment. These human actions include energy consumption, land-use practices, and

strategies (including the lack thereof) of dealing with atmospheric pollution.

Environmentalism as a set of behaviors depends upon a culture of sustainability.

Sustainability is a loaded term with a variety of meanings.16 Sustainability is of central

importance to a number of authoritative sources, including business-oriented environmental

organizations, EV researchers, and national policy makers. Each offers their diverse

interpretation of sustainability:

• Econimically focused: “development that meets the needs of the present without

compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World

Commission on Environment and Development [WCED], 1987).

• Resource focused: “ how humans manage and maintain natural resources for

future use without compromising ecological diversity” (Holmes 2006, 3).

• Urban / community focused: “a set of values, goals, strategies, and initiatives

that communities — and the institutions and individuals within them — adopt to

meet their needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet

their own needs. Increasingly cities are interpreting urban sustainability as a

decision making framework that considers all benefits and costs to the economy,

environment, health, and quality of life” (Parzen, 2012, 51).

16 Sustainable business development is a salient issue in our contemporary economy, and there is still work

to do to achieve the United Nations’ set goals (United Nations, 2013).

For an analysis of said report, see: Confino, 2013.

The UN High-Level Advisory Panel recently submitted a report saying that faster, broad-based change is

needed (Jeremić, Vuk and Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, 2013).

• Systems focused: “requires comprehending linkages between cities, nature, and

countryside and thinking holistically about the interconnections of water, energy,

transportation, communications, and other infrastructure” (Scarlett, 2012, 52).

The economic- and resource-focused definitions articulate sustainability looking towards

future development and use of resources. The first, economically focused interpretation is too

ambiguous in terms of its future resource use, and fails to address pressing questions about the

real needs of business to grow their profits. Sustainable business development strives to meet the

triple bottom line17 (TBL) of accountability, including social, ecological, and financial factors

that contribute to public sector full cost accounting.18 Innovative thinking about the environment

and development was first introduced in 1987 through the Brundtland Report, but these

mandates do not always result in social and environmental justice.19 Sustainability researcher

Pratima Bansal asserts that time is central to sustainability, which aims to secure

intergenerational equity through intertemporal trade-offs (2014). Time is the aspect that

differentiates sustainability from other similar concepts, such as corporate social responsibility

(CSR).20 Bansal supports this assertion by exemplifying how CSR may lead to environmental

and societal degradation (Ibid, 72).

17 Sustainability scholar John Elkington coined the phrase “the triple bottom line” (TBL) in 1994 as a

conceptual framework for business analysis (Elkington.1997).

18 The TBL dimensions are also commonly called the three Ps: people, planet and profits. The TBL

captures the essence of sustainability by measuring the impact of an organization’s activities on the world, including

both its profitability and shareholder values and its social, human and environmental capital. For an overall

understanding of TBL, see Slaper and Hall, 2011.

19 The Brundtland Report’s obfuscated introduction of the term sustainable development was a result of the

UNWCED’s inability to properly identify and analyze the mode(s) of production that are responsible for degradation

of the environment. In the absence of analyzing the principles governing market-led economic growth, the Report

postulated that such growth could be reformed and expanded (UNWCED, 1987).

20 Responsibility scholars argue that CSR represents the set of organizational activities that are good for

both society and business (McWilliams and Siegel, 2001).

The second, resource-focused interpretation holds environmentalism at its core, with an

implication that meeting current and future economic needs would be a requirement. Like the

first articulation of sustainability, this definition is inconclusive.

Each definition has something useful and relevant to offer for the comprehension of

sustainability. However, the third and fourth definitions offer the most provocative and

comprehensive framework pertaining to this investigation. Unlike the preceding articulations

looking towards the future, urban / community and systems focused approaches to sustainability

are situated in the present, considering interconnected social space. The urban / community and

systems approach are also conceptually aligned with eco-art, which holds that organisms are

interdependent.

Information Visualization

Information visualization (info-vis) is about making something visible, building a

foundation for thoughts and questions, explaining interrelationships and for obtaining new

knowledge. I draw from the research of Warren Sack, a professor of film and digital media at

University of California, Santa Cruz, who specializes in social computing, software design and

studies, and media theory. Sack situates info-vis as a spatial product and a producer of space:

The genealogy of information visualization work includes the collection of work

done by artists and designers throughout centuries to make these collective bodies

visible and give them the means to assemble and connect. There is a specific

lineage of this work devoted to the demos, the creation of spaces, places and

representations for the Body Politic of democracy.

In other words, the aesthetics of information visualization concerns the Body

Politic and the history of information visualization is the history of art and design

created to gather together, reflect and represent the Body Politic. Its history

includes the history of public spaces, the arts, and literatures (Sack, 2007, 14).

Sack’s description of information visualization situates the practice as a tool for collective

communication of knowledge both public and private. Once communicated, the knowledge

empowers individuals and social entities (corporations and states, for example) to initiate

behavior and / or policy changes. A sustainable world requires the participation of everyone to

provide knowledge, make decisions, and change their daily routines (Myers and Macnaghten,

1998, 333).

Technological devices continually gather and compile a vast amount of information

regarding any number of topics from a variety of sources. However, this data is seldom visual

and the relationships between the data sets can be obscured and confusing for those outside

particular fields. The information is hidden in numbers and broken up between industry reports.

This knowledge fracture is remedied by info-vis. Data is actively associated and connected, in

order to provide a foundation to support cognition and promote further research. Info-vis is a tool

for sensemaking, for knowledge crystallization. According to Stuart Card, a pioneer in human-

computer interaction, sensemaking involves the following actions: 1) Acquire information. 2)

Understand the connections between the information. 3) Create something new from the data. 4)

Act on this new understanding. By going through these processes, info-vis will amplify the

user’s cognitive powers (1983). Info-vis is a mode of communication that uses data from layered

and complex systems, making visual the connections amongst seemingly disparate datasets. Info-

vis can also be an art form, and it is referred to artistic info-vis. In an influential paper in 1948,

scientist Warren Weaver recognized that science is shaped by “problems of organized

complexity” (4). Weaver argued that future scientific endeavors needed to simultaneously deal

with large, complex systems of information, composed of a considerable number of connected

and interdependent variables. By influencing contemporary thinking about science and network

theory, Weaver laid the groundwork for recognizing rhizomatic properties of complex

information including decentralization, emergence, mutability, nonlinearity, and diversity. The

rhizomatic, networked structure of information visualization operates as a decoder of complexity

in a graphical / visual way to express connections and meaning within and among data.

A number of leading media theorists and researchers offer definitions of info-vis, that

when read together, offer a comprehensive understanding of the contemporary field as it relates

to technology:

1. Infovis is the use of computers to interactively amplify cognition, using visual

representations and metaphors for mapping abstract data (Card, et al., 1999).

2. Visualization “can be thought of as a particular subset of mapping in which a

data set is mapped into an image” (Manovich, 2002, 2).

3. Info-vis is a set of tools and techniques for distinguishing the ‘forest’ from the

‘trees,’ a means for providing context from the data details (Sack, 2007).

The first definition relies on technology as a main component of visualization. Computer-driven

visualizations dominate the discipline, and are components of the EV projects discussed in

Chapter One. However, the two latter definitions of info-vis are more pertinent to this

introduction, and allow for a wider interpretation of visualization specifically as it pertains to the

discipline of EV.

Sack asserts that the practice of info-vis arose from a practical need for governance,

orientation and navigation to create a visual archive and filing system. Info-vis fills a cultural

need to comment on, critique, provide alternatives, and distance the group from the bureaucratic

forms and procedures of modernity, especially those of information technologies, government

practices, and hegemonic business tools and ideas (2007, 13).

The field of info-vis is extensive, reaching in all directions of inquiry. For the purposes of

this research, I focus on the sub-discipline of EV, dealing with environmental and ecological

information, in specific, those projects visualizing energy use, weather patterns, air & water

quality, and issues related to animal conservation. Info-vis is directly associated to the disciplines

of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) (Card et al., 1986; Carroll, 2013), Persuasive Technology

(Kim, T. et al., 2010; Fogg, 2002), and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) (Weiser and Brown,

1997).

HCI, Persuasive Technology, and UbiComp have associated concerns that are relevant to

the characterization of digitally based info-vis. Persuasive technology is designed to change the

attitudes or behaviors of its users through social influence without coercion. In doing so,

persuasive ambient displays can bridge sustainable design and info-vis (Kim, et al., 2010, 105).

However, voices of dissent argue that persuasive technology (including HCI and UbiComp) is

problematic as a process that can prioritize technology as a way of improving life.

Hrönn Brynjarsdóttir, a computer scientist specializing in the politics of information, asserts that

narrowly framing persuasive sustainability as a simple metric of the relationship between human

behavior and sustainable actions can lead to incorrectly placing technology as an objective

arbiter over more complex issues of sustainability (2012, 947). This framing leads to portraying

sustainability as fixed, known, and stable, and excludes social political concerns regarding

resource allocation (DiSalvo et al., 2010; Dourish, 2010; Pierce et al., 2010).

Persuasive sustainability systems can be understood as an example of modernist21

technology design, which aims to improve life through technical means and embraces scientific

perspectives as the grounds for new definitions of value. In a modernist mindset, these formal

21 Modernist approaches are characterized by three axioms: First, techno-scientific reasoning and top-down,

expert knowledge are a way to organize our lives; Second, orientation around means-end thinking, maximizing

efficiency, and exerting control are ground principles optimizing daily processes; and Third, rational methods

capture essentially everything that matters about a given situation (Brynjarsdóttir et al., 950).

methods of sensing can capture the essential aspects of sustainability and lead to a predicted

outcome. Modernist technological design indeed has a positive outcome for persuasive

sustainability: an actionable framework structures novel solutions for managing modes of

resource minimization. However, modernist solutions are based on a “narrowing of vision”

(Scott, 1999, 11).22 Brynjarsdóttir et al. note that while a narrow vision enables a range of

technical solutions, those solutions collapse beyond the constructed framing of the problem

(951). Persuasive technology does not tackle the complex issue of sustainability as a whole and

focuses on granular individual consumer behavior. Focusing on individual pattern consumption

can obscure the actions of larger entities (Dourish, 2010, 3). The methods used by persuasive

technology can lead to focusing too strongly on numerical analysis of individual actions,

accepting expert or authoritarian decisions made by designers, and making the assumption that

people will change their behavior after understanding provided information. Persuasive

technology is not able to study the meaning of individual actions. Systemic problems include that

persuasive technology focuses too much upon incremental over systemic change (again,

individual user changes versus shifts of scale), and when the political dynamics as they impact

individuals are understood, the persuasive solutions fall apart (Brynjarsdóttir et al, 2012;

Strengers, 2011; Dourish, 2010; Pierce and Paulos, 2010; Woodruff et al, 2008). The narrow

vision of persuasive sustainability is reductive, unsupportive of a synoptic view and difficult

lifestyle choices that might be necessary for sustainable, green societies.

Within the discipline of info-vis two main areas of research and application emerge that

are returned to time and again. First, practitioners of info-vis are engaged with aesthetics, defined

22 Similar discussions of the possibilities and limitations of modernist design approaches are presented in

(Edwards, 1996) and (Weber, 2002).

here as an appearance that is artistically beautiful or pleasing.23 Noam Tractinsky, a researcher in

the aesthetics of information technology, asserts that research in HCI reveals a bias towards the

pleasing appearance of artifacts based on computing technology, rather than the effects of their

displeasing counterparts. The aesthetic experience of HCI is based on audience reaction, rather

than the object having an inherent aesthetic value.24 Tractinsky also notes that the time frame for

aesthetic appreciation can range from fast reactions to slow contemplations. Visual aesthetics

encompasses three main areas, including the design perspective (the principles of design), the

psychological perspective (a source of pleasure), and the practical perspective (design

differences) (Tractinsky, 2014).

Second, practitioners analyze audience response and the ways in which info-vis may

influence behavior change.25 Brynjarsdóttir et al. ask if persuasive sustainability leads to

behavior change. In an overview of the literature, they find little or no evaluation. In some cases

this is because the info-vis researchers cannot evaluate because they are testing a design

methodology or are discussing only preliminary results. Brynjarsdóttir et al. also find that when

23 The discussion of aesthetics is wide-ranging. For the purposes of this research, I limit the discussion to

the context of human development. For the seminal text on the psychology of aesthetics, see: Arnheim, 2004. For

the psychology of aesthetics in design for our health and survival, see: Hekkert, 2006. For a discussion of aesthetics

as it relates to evolution, see: Tooby and Cosmides, 2001.

24 Seeing an object as beautiful or aesthetically pleasing may be a more a matter of position than a matter of

truth, with familiarity and authority as key factors. For a discussion of beauty and functionality within objects, and

HCI specifically, see: Hassenzahl, 2012; Frohlich, 2004.

25 A number of studies research the behavioral effects of info-vis. Research has shown that there is no

single construct that predicts environmentally friendly behavior, see: Oskamp et al., 1991.

Design strategies differ for individual and collectivist cultures, see: Kimura and Nakajima, 2011.

Design strategies that support behavior change, including abstract & reflective, unobtrusive, public,

aesthetic, positive, controllable, trending / historical, comprehensive, incentivizing, and competitive, see: Consolvo

et al, 2009; Midden et al., 2007; Gasser et al., 2006; Bergeron, 2006; Michael and Chen 2005; McMakin et al, 2002.

For feedback behavioral strategies through design, see: Froelich et al., 2010; Fischer, 2008; Darby, 2006;

Geller, 1982.

For design strategies stimulating critical reflection, see: Pierce et al., 2010; Dunne and Raby, 2001; Stern,

1993 and 1999.

behavior changes are claimed, anecdotal evidence is related but it is difficult to determine what

behaviors changed or by how much (949). While some short-term evidence is reported, long-

term evidence of behavior change is rare, with only one study that could be considered long-term

(beyond the norm of three to four weeks in length) (Broms, et al., 2010). Rather than choosing a

bottom-up, participatory or user-centered model, info-vis researchers chose a top-down method,

where the targeted behavior and the measuring metric of that behavior are predetermined. A

predetermined point of evaluation indicates that the info-vis is a device or program designed for

consumer use.

Measuring individual consumer behavior with EV is not relevant for the purposes of this

research. Instead, I evaluate the project in a larger cultural context, examining the aesthetics of

governance within the spaces and representations of our contemporary culture. The practice of

information visualization, and by extension, EV – is a tool for collective communication of

information in order to empower individuals and social entities to initiate change.

Dynamic Data and Static Data

In the literature, info-vis is characterized as employing two distinct types of data sets:

dynamic and static data. Researcher Melanie Tory, Director of the Visual Interaction Design

(VisID) research group at the University of Victoria, articulates the distinction between the data

sets in terms of their variables. Tory names a number of characteristics:26

• Scalar, vector (2D, 3D, or nD), tensor, or more complicated structure.

26 Data types are categorized into 1-, 2-, 3-dimensional data, including linear data types encompassing

textual documents, program source code, and alphabetical lists of names organized in a sequential manner; temporal

and multi-dimensional data, including geographic maps, floor plans, or newspaper layouts; and tree and network

data, including real-world objects such as molecules, the human body, and buildings that have potentially complex

relationships with other items (Shneiderman, 1996, 337-338).

• Discrete (e.g., number of people in a city) or continuous (e.g., population density

across a metropolitan area). In many cases, data is discrete but sampled from a

continuous source (e.g., medical images); this data may be considered continuous

since we can interpolate between sampled points to guess at the values in

between.

• Nominal (values have no natural order), ordinal (values have a natural order),

interval (there is a meaningful distance metric between any two values, so

arithmetic can be done on them), or ratio (an interval variable with a meaningful

zero). For example: (1) The set {cherry, apple, banana} has no natural order and

is nominal. (2) The sets {small, medium, large} and the alphabetically ordered

{apple, banana, cherry} are ordinal. (3) Temperature is commonly measured

using interval scales such as Celsius and Fahrenheit. (4) The Kelvin scale for

temperature is a ratio scale because it has an absolute zero (i.e. 0 K is the lowest

possible temperature) (2004, 2).

Of the listed data sets, several forms may be represented visually, including data values (as

described above), data structure (file hierarchies, grid formations), and meta-data. Meta-data is

derived from data values or structure (it is data about data). Derived data can consist of derived

values and / or derived structure. Both dynamic and static data are referred to in info-vis

literature; however, static data is of less interest to contemporary digitally based visualization

researchers. Even though static datasets are less prevalent, they are featured a part of the field,

and are featured in EV projects discussed in Chapter Two. In my chosen examples dynamic data

is visualized with a screen or with other computer-mediated technology. Static data is visualized

with non-digital materials.

Dynamic info-vis is characterized by variations over time. In essence, dynamic data is

state-changing (Marca and McGowan, 1982, 137). As listed above, data can be discrete but

sampled from a continuous source (wind speed); wind speed data may be considered dynamic

when it can be interpolated between sampled points to guess at the values (speed) in between

(Tory et al., 2). For example, static, time- and place-based wind speed data becomes dynamic

when it is continuously read from a large region. Martin Wattenburg’s and Fernanda Viégas’s

Wind Map (2012 – present) project illustrates aspects of dynamic data: static wind speed

information is interpolated and visualized. Wind speed data is produced by weather reading

devices, sampled across the continental United States, and collected from the National Digital

Forecast Database (NDFD). Wind Map’s imagery subtly shifts and changes hourly as surface

data is updated. Wind Map estimates the wind speed between sampled points. Because of this,

Wattenburg and Viégas advise against using Wind Map as a weather map.

Dynamics in digital info-vis are not limited to the data; dynamics can include user-

interaction for navigation, continuous queries (web trawlers), and streaming information. I

continue to draw upon Wind Map to exemplify two of the above points. First, users can navigate

the Wind Map page by hovering their cursor. Once paused, the wind speed and North / South

coordinates are displayed. The users can further interact with the map by clicking and enlarging a

given point. The site responds by enhancing the web view to offer more details of wind pattern.

Wattenburg and Viégas programmed Wind Map’s algorithm to dynamically query the NDFD for

hourly wind information, so their imagery changes over the course of the day according to the

wind patterns through the US.

The dynamics of info-vis can also be visual. Joseph Cottam, a post-doctoral researcher at

the Center for Research in Extreme Scale Technologies, notes that the optical aspects of digital

dynamic info-vis change over time by modifying two sets of variables, spatial and retinal. The

spatial variables are the X, Y, and Z coordinates in a 2D space, such as a computer screen. An

element changes its coordinates by moving within the area of the screen, including layering over

other elements (Cottam et al., 193). Retinal variables include but are not limited to the size,

value, orientation, texture, hue and shape of visual elements (Ibid, 193). Wind Map exemplifies

dynamic visuals and is structured as a series of flow lines in the form of comet-like trails. Wind

patterns are visualized using a generated texture of discrete points in response to the data input.

The texture constantly changes and is animated to illustrate flow direction and magnitude of

wind movement. Dynamic visuals are unpredictable, bounded only by incoming data.

Static data can function as an unmoving, foundational structure for info-vis (Marca et al.,

1982, 137). This data may be an unchanging number, for example, a water temperature at a given

time. Static data is what the artist Nathalie Miebach uses to inform her work. Miebach gathers

temporal weather data, both numeric and observational. This collected data is compared against

historical information and is then plotted in three dimensions to create a sculpture. The weather

data is discrete, and from a continuous source. Miebach’s work will be discussed at length in

Chapter Two. Static data may also be historical information, as with Miebach’s work, in which

case analysis and representation convey historical dynamics (Wolter et al., 2009). Cottam et al.

assert that it is up to the audience to interpret a static info-vis by identifying the correspondences

between the visual representation and the underlying data (2012).

Maps, Diagrams, and Graphs as Information Visualization

Spatial metaphors dominate info-vis research. Phrases like ‘mapping information,’

‘information terrain,’ ‘network navigation,’ and ideas including the visualization of scale are

regular concerns within the discipline and are prevalent in my discussion of EV. For example,

info-vis researcher Rohrer states that visualizing the nonvisual requires mapping the abstract into

a physical form, whether the form is a pixel or a physical object (1998). In keeping with the

mapping metaphor, some info-vis works take the form of a map and their creation is informed by

existing cartographic approaches (Skupin, 2000). Maps are efficient when the data being

conveyed is presented as clearly as possible. For efficiency, the main data should be clearly

distinguishable from the additional information displayed, such as the terrain or boundary lines

of the geography. Wind Map is efficient – a minimal amount of geographic data is used to give

context to the dynamic imagery, including the outlines of the continental United States and a few

major cities. Other EVs, like Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides, work in opposition to this idea

of efficiency. While information is mapped into a dimensional object, the “mapping” is

interpretive. Miebach’s artwork is open to audience interpretation: the audience can identify the

correspondences (or not) between the visual representation and how it is formed by the

underlying data.

Refining and systematizing the art of mapping was conceived by cartographer Jacques

Bertin, as he laid a foundational theory for information visualization with his seminal 1967 work,

Semiology of Graphics: Diagrams, Networks, Maps. Bertin asserts that the effectiveness of any

diagram is based on the degree of structural equivalence and meaning that can be reached

between data and the visual variables. In the case of maps, geographic coordinates fix the most

powerful variables, the two planar dimensions, as in elevation. Any information beyond

geometry must be expressed by encodings using the remaining retinal variables. Bertin describes

graphic representation as

One of the basic sign-systems conceived by the human mind for the purposes of

storing, understanding, and communicating essential information. As a ‘language’

for the eye, graphics benefits from the ubiquitous properties of visual perception

(2).

Bertin lays the groundwork for information visualization by articulating graphics as a

monosemic system of signs. In a monosemic system, the meaning of each sign is known and

agreed upon, specified and stated through the legend or external identification.

These concepts spread to other visual disciplines, and Bertin later noted that graphic

designers seek to reduce confusion, enable discussion of a collection of signs, and construct a

rational moment of understanding (1984, 2). Successful graphics function by answering a chosen

question through the recording, communicating, and the processing of information. When the

information is complex and multi-layered, the organization and visual representation of the

components must follow in order to convey meaning without misunderstanding.

One case of visual confusion is the Dymaxion Map, patented in 1946 by Buckminster

Fuller.27 The Dymaxion Map, arguably based on Cahill’s patented butterfly map of 1909, solves

several problems facing other map projections, namely the distortion of the size and shape of

some continents. Instead of projecting the round earth onto a flat surface, Fuller presented the

globe as an unfolded cubo-octahedron, thus visualizing the Earth’s landmass as an island in one

large ocean, with very little distortion or splitting of the continents. While accurately displaying

the size and shape of continents, the angular geometry of the icosahedral-shaped map is

criticized for having a weak correlation to the globe. Other criticisms include Fuller’s disregard

for accuracy in ocean areas, with the map being unsuitable for navigation because of the broken

parallels and bent meridians (Stockton, 2013).

Graphs can be a way to convey relationships between data sets, but they can become

confusing if they are too abstract in their representation, similar to the visual confusion created

by the Dymaxion Map. While a graph is a perfectly accurate means by which to represent data, it

may only be meaningful to its creator. In Visualizing Data (2008), Ben Fry warns against using a

graph because of the susceptibility to obscure information:

There is a tendency when using graphs to become smitten with one’s own data.

Even though a graph of a few hundred nodes quickly becomes unreadable, it is

often satisfying for the creator because the resulting figure is elegant and complex

and may be subjectively beautiful, and the notion that the creator’s data is

“complex” fits just fine with the creator’s own interpretation of it. Graphs have a

tendency of making a data set look sophisticated and important, without having

solved the problem of enlightening the viewer (241).

27 The Dymaxion map folds into an icosahedron and then morphs into a globe. See: Rywalt, 1995.

Fry is referring to work made specifically for communicating information clearly and his

concern is relevant for info-vis (and particular EV projects) whose goal is direct, unequivocal

dissemination of data. However, I argue that not all EV work is created for the same purpose

(direct communication of data), but is made to convey an idea, provide insight, stimulate other

sensory responses from the viewer, and critique culture.

Info-Vis and EV: Strategies and Functions

One main concern of info-vis is its ability to effectively communicate disparate data. In

this section I establish an analytical basis for evaluating EV through a set of strategies and

functions set forth by leading visualization researchers. I draw from the work of James Pierce, an

interactive design researcher at the Berkeley Center for New Media. Pierce et al. (2008) offer

eight communication strategies that characterize successful EVs.

1. Offers behavior cues and indicators.

2. Provides tools for analysis.

3. Creates social incentive to behave sustainably.

4. Connects behavior to material impacts of consumption.

5. Encourages playful engagement and exploration with energy.

6. Projects and cultivates sustainable lifestyle values.

7. Raises public awareness and facilitates discussion.

8. Stimulates critical reflection.

Conservation goals are supported by the first two strategies by providing useful information, in

the form of contextual real-time feedback (as with live-streaming data) or ambient feedback (a

pre-processed set data source). The tools for analysis differ from project to project, with some

offering tools supporting pattern behaviors. Pierce et al. note that they assume that the audience

has an a priori motivation to adopt sustainable behavior. The third and fourth strategies are

incentivizing, specifically where no financial incentives are present. These incentives may take

the form of competitive games or public disclosure of sustainable activities, in order to support a

connected understanding of individual and collective impact. The final four strategies are about

the experiential aspects of EV that encompass playfulness, curiosity, exploration, and reflection.

The user or audience may be engaged for the pleasure of the visual and/or physical experience. I

interpret and expand upon the fifth strategy to signify the issue at hand, be it energy use, weather

patterns, or air quality. The EV may take a form that is a symbolic gesture of awareness and a

reminder for sustainable practice. An EV may also bring issues of energy consumption and

environmental sustainability to the forefront of cultural knowledge, thereby prompting social

action. Finally, EV may stimulate critical reflection upon the technology, energy, and materials

used therein, and can be self-reflexive in addressing those concerns.

Collaborators since 2003, Wattenburg and Viégas lead Google’s “Big Picture”

visualization research group. Their main concerns include addressing the questions of data

transparency and its social impact beyond academia, business, and government by complicating

and subverting a tool that is largely used for analysis by both business and the military. As info-

vis practitioners, Wattenburg and Viégas recognize “the critical role played by conversations…

and social activity surrounding graphical data analysis” (2006, 810). They note that info-vis

enables simultaneous viewing and polyvocal discussion within multiple contexts (802). They

also note that visualization has the potential to become a mass medium (2011). Like Pierce et al.,

they posit guidelines for success:

1. Making the visualization relatable.

2. Share and discuss the visualization.

3. Be expressive and engaging.

Wattenburg and Viégas assert that there is no conflict between communicating well and

engaging audiences. The first guideline suggests offering personalized entry points so individual

users can orient and add their own context for knowledge. The second guideline asserts that it is

through social experience that info-vis attracts interest, allowing for a deeper understanding of

the data. The third guideline is to be expressive, using emotion through deliberate choice.

Ben Shneiderman, a computer scientist and founding director of the Human Computer

Interaction Lab at the University of Maryland, College Park, offers a deceptively simple strategy

for designing advanced digital graphical user interfaces. The Visual Information Seeking Mantra

is: “Overview first. Zoom and filter. Details on demand” [Repeat mantra] (1996, 336). The

mantra functions as a design guide and structure for his type by task taxonomy (TTT) of info-vis.

Shneiderman’s assumption is that viewers are seeing collections of information, with each type

of information having multiple attributes. After the mantra, there are seven tasks that function as

abstraction of reality:

1. Overview: Gain an overview of the entire collection.

2. Zoom: Zoom in on items of interest.

3. Filter: Filter out uninteresting items.

4. Details-on-demand: Select an item or group and get details when needed.

5. Relate: View relationships among items.

6. History: Keep a history of actions to support undo, replay, and progressive

refinement.

7. Extract: Allow extraction of sub-collections and of the query parameters.

Shneiderman asserts that the strategies are useful only if their use leads to discussion and further

research. Though some of Shneiderman’s discussion is applicable only to digital info-vis,

(strategies 6 and 7), most of the mantra and tasks can be applied to non-digital EV projects.

Building upon the above strategies as outlined by Pierce et al., Wattenburg and Viégas,

and Shneiderman, are the five functions of visualization outlined by Manuel Lima. Lima is a

computer interaction designer and researcher, at the forefront of networked information design

development. Most importantly Lima asserts EV’s future relevance as a form of communication.

He states that visualizations will “prove useful for illuminating the most complex and important

network of all: Earth’s biosphere…These include not only the biological networks that sustain us

but also the generation of the ‘natural resources’ that feed consumer society’s global production

and distribution networks” (256). Lima contextualizes his discussion of the five functions of

visualization within the broad discipline of info-vis. Lima’s five functions will be applied to EV.

In his 2011 publication, Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information, Lima

builds upon Edward Tufte’s foundational theory of design. Tufte is a statistician / computer

scientist / design intellectual who states how an overarching concept directs visuality:

“Ideas not only guide work, but also help defend our designs (by providing

reasons for choices) against arbitrary taste preferences” (Tufte, 1990, 82).

Excellent info-vis is guided by aesthetics and the principles of information design. The standards

of quality are “derived from visual principles that tell us how to put the right mark in the right

place” (9). Tufte argues that images, words, numbers, and artistic interpretation intersect to

create a whole, dependent upon the fluid interaction of composition, text, and information.

Though Tufte’s theories guided generations of designers towards thoughtful and expressive

work, some researchers believe that Tufte’s theory of color use led to too many beige-colored

diagrams (Wattenburg and Viégas, 2011).

Lima contends that digitally based info-vis has an embryonic and evolving taxonomy of

form.28 This visual language is characterized by systems that use shared structures. A single data

set may be visualized in several different ways depending on the way it is read and implemented

by the artist / researcher. These visualizations include but are not limited to classifications like

the “Arc Diagram,” “Area Grouping,” “Centralized Burst,” “Centralized Ring,” and “Organic

Rhizome.”29 Other common structures include tree diagrams and graphs. They may have

dynamic organization, but remain restricting in the digital realm, which is better represented by

networked systems and webs of information. Networks have a rhizomatic structure and are

symbols of autonomy, flexibility, diversity, multiplicity, and collaboration within socially shared

virtual space. Lima states that networks are “contributing to a considerable shift in our

conception of society, culture, and art, expressing a new sense of beauty” (221). While

communicating data from a variety of sources, including multiple geographies and times, these

emergent forms foreground a sense of interconnectedness and complexity, rhythm and

movement, pattern and structure, with resemblances to natural patterns.

Info-vis is not only a decoder of complexity but also consists of five key functions. The

first function is to document, which is to map a previously undocumented system and opens the

door for further discoveries. The second function is to clarify, making the system

comprehensible and transparent, which supports information processing and understanding. The

28 A number of info-vis taxonomies exist in the literature and expand annually. For taxonomy of dynamic

info-vis, see: Cottam et al., 2012.

Info-vis analysis taxonomy, see Heer et al., 2012.

Info-vis animation taxonomy, see: Heer et al., 2007.

Info-vis for data-state model of visualization, see: Chi, 2000.

Taxonomies of time-varying data, see: Aigner et al., 2007; Daassi et al., 2006; Wolter et al., 2009.

Taxonomy of visualization via the models used, see: Tory et al., 2004.

Taxonomy of visualization within three-dimensional space: Keim, 2002.

29 Other structures include code swarm visualization and flow lines, see Cottam et al., 2012.

third function is to reveal something exciting within the data set. Lima suggests that the reveal

should rely on causality through disclosure of relationships while checking the central questions

of the data. The fourth function is to expand, allowing the data to become a vehicle for other uses

and enabling further exploration. To expand upon the data enables the information to become

part of a larger work. The data can also be a means to an end or used as an underlying layer of

additional visualizations. Finally, the fifth function is to abstract the data in order to explore the

schema as a platform for representation. With abstraction, the visualization can depict a variety

of intangible concepts that might not rely on an existing data set.

Though these strategies and functions are originally stated in the context of computer-

driven info-vis, I assert that EV projects do not need to be screen-based to efficiently

communicate disparate information sets. Collected together, these strategies and functions

provide a means for analysis of the structure and function of EV work. Each of these points in

turn will be discussed in relationship to digitally based EV projects in Chapter One, including

Building Run and Eclipse. They will be explored in Chapter Two with projects that use multiple

materials and are three-dimensional including Cloud Car, Particle Falls, The Sandy Rides, and

Mussel Choir.

The Aesthetics of Info-Vis: Pragmatic and Artistic Visualization

Info-vis increasingly relies upon the power of aesthetics to sustain interest and

communicate effectively, as discussed in a number of studies (Tractinsky, 2014; Kosara, 2007;

Lau et al, 2007; Viégas and Wattenberg, 2007 and 2011). HCI researcher Marianne Petersen

asserts that aesthetics is the foundation for a purposeful system of communication, and has the

ability to surprise, provoke thought, and move the subject to a new insight of the world:

“Aesthetic Interaction is not about conveying meaning and direction through

uniform models; it is about triggering imagination, it is thought-provoking and

encourages people to think differently about the encountered interactive systems,

what they do and how they might be used differently to serve differentiated goals”

(Petersen et al., 2004, 271).

For the purposes of this Introduction and the following chapters, I use the term ‘aesthetics’ to

mean that which is visual and sensory within EV work, and discuss the role of aesthetics in

effective and successful EV works.

Info-vis researchers agree that not all data is created equal, with key points being

emphasized in different ways (Viégas and Wattenberg, 2011; Few, 2009.) Within the literature,

there exist two types of info-vis: digital, analysis-oriented work and analog, interpretive artistic

pieces. These are organized in one of two ways: pragmatic and artistic info-vis (Kosara, 2007).

These pragmatic and artistic info-vis categories are not related to dynamic and static data sets – a

pragmatic info-vis may be based on static data or dynamic, an artistic info-vis may be based on

dynamic data, and vice-versa.

On one end of the spectrum of info-vis are pragmatic visualizations. They are created to

show only the data, be purposely devoid of interpretive possibility, and use an accepted language

(for example, a bar chart). Pragmatic visualization is “designed to remove any sublimity, and

instead foster immediate understanding” (Viégas and Wattenberg, 2007, 190). Pragmatic

visualizations result from Tufte’s assertion that a large share of the ink on a graphic should show

the data (1983, 96). This statement was interpreted as a directive in order to not distract the

viewers with irrelevant elements. Pragmatic visualization is ultimately designed for visual

efficiency and straightforward transmission of information enabling quick readability and

immediate understanding. Pragmatic visualizations “have sought to minimize distortions, since

these might interfere with dispassionate analysis” (Wattenberg and Viégas, 2007, 9). In this

respect, info-vis was designed to maintain a functionalist perspective for a particular set of

analytic tasks (Pousman et al., 2007, 1147). Artistic info-vis opens spaces for personal stories

and meaning, and has multiple correct readings of information (Pousman et al, 2007, 1151).

Though indexical representation is good for informative and retrospective purposes in info-vis,

iconic and metaphorical images can trigger more awareness and motivation for future behavior

change through emotional attachment (Kim et al., 2010, 116).

Info-vis can be embedded into the everyday environment. This aesthetically pleasing

information can change subtly, moving from the periphery to the focus of attention. Info-vis

researcher Zach Pousman identifies info-vis which is ambiently embedded into the everyday

environment as casual info-vis (2007). Technology and information systems can be integrated

into the environment seamlessly in order to create spaces that are invested with knowledge and

meaning (Aipperspach et. all, 2008.) Pousman et al. assert that casual, artistic info-vis may be

useful artifacts that are helpful for providing representations of data, but without a clear task

focus (2007, 1151). They recognize that eco-visualizations can function as ambient displays,

relaying information that is important but not critical. Contextually adapting info-vis for different

environments supports its effectiveness (Rodgers and Bartram, 2011; Bartram et al., 2010). Info-

vis can relate data in abstract ways, and these modes of representation are visually rich and

complex, especially when integrated to the rhythms of life. This includes home life, personal

data sources, and to other areas of social engagement (Pousman et al., 2006 and 2007).

Pragmatic and artistic info-vis serve different purposes. I am most interested in and will

discuss a variety of artistic EV, from those that are digital and device-mediated to those that are

sculptural. They necessarily shift in style from being highly correlative to being more

interpretive as each project grows more complex visually and functionally.

Sack asserts that when looking at artistic info-vis we are not to worry if they are

beautiful, friendly, or easy to use:

Instead interrogate them by asking what sorts of governance they support or

reflect: Are they democratic or bureaucratic? In short, I ask that we shift our

attention away from visual aesthetics and focus, instead, on an aesthetics of

governance” (Sack, 2007, 8)

Sack’s argument is compelling, but limiting. It is not enough to focus only on the aesthetics of

governance because that does not allow for an interrelated, systems-based understanding of the

ways artists are working to address ecological crisis. Instead, I will take a synoptic view and

examine both visual aesthetics and the aesthetics of governance of EV. By doing so, I will

consider how EV projects may reiterate the modes of industrial production and bureaucracy in

order to engage, decode and critique them (Ibid, 6). By analyzing EV within our larger political

and cultural contexts, I will position EV not only as a sensemaking tool for complex

environmental issues, but also as a way to see the way we function within our immediate

community, and beyond within a larger Body Politic.

Creative Project

The creative project is a series, Sculpting Corn Production, consisting of small, discrete

paper sculptures. The work exemplifies the concepts and information regarding EV artwork as

explored in the research investigation in a number of ways, including the strategies and functions

as discussed in this Introduction. My studio work benefits from the insight of contemporary

artists and info-vis researchers, including their concerns and processes within the EV genre. The

research and writing have provided a strong foundation from which to develop my research and

methodology. EV is a new direction for my studio work, though I have long been interested in

the visualization of hidden environmental information.

The creative project presented an opportunity to engage with specific datasets in a

physical and visual manner and to demonstrate the broadened definition of EV set forth in the

research investigation. For instance, my chosen imagery is driven by predetermined static data

sets rather than by streams of dynamic data. My creative work has used rules-based making and

processes in the past, attributing a series of values, including color, form, and even physically

responsive outputs to information input. Like my past work, the creative project employs rules-

based making (attributing shape to data), but unlike my past work which has been playful in

nature, this new body of work is serious in approach to content and form. This is a result of

experimenting with familiar forms; each structure was based on existing architecture and

numerical data, created multiple times, and manipulated until each element worked together as a

unified structure. The imagery is dynamic, created with a sense of interpretive complexity.

Though the visual elements are guided by data, the resulting imagery has undergone an

uncoupling of shape from information. This work employs a multiplicity of logics and

irregularity through my interpretation of the data. My EV is abstract – ultimately its logic may

only be available to me. The creative project is a foundation for future work through the

development of concept, the exploration of process, the interpretation / translation of data, and

the deployment of information through form. Realizing successful aesthetic and visual elements

of the creative project are fundamental to the overall success of the creative project, and will

support future research. Creating a series of dimensional EV works has provided me with an

opportunity to broaden my understanding of the process and contribute new knowledge to this

emergent field.

During my research I have found a vast amount of information related directly to

industrial corn production in the United States since the 1970’s. The available information

includes but is not limited to: national farm legislation and economic subsidies, data sets

documenting the growth of grain farming, numbers of bushels produced annually, genetically

modified seed availability, chemical repellent and fertilizer usage, documentation of the

widespread use of refined corn sweeteners and fillers, indexes listing the rise of American

obesity, and reports of the wide-ranging environmental impact of industrial farming. These vast

data sets are not organized, interconnected or visual. Most of these sets are categorized as static,

historical, and geographically specific. The EV is not an exhaustive overview of the

aforementioned datasets; rather, it is a sampling of a select few. I began the creative project by

asking one question: “What does the average American taxpayer spend to subsidize the

American corn industry?” Rather than an exact answer to that particular question, more data was

revealed than expected during the course of this research, and this has allowed for a broader

visual interpretation of the information. The creative project makes visual connections between

select groups of information, using color, movement, scale, and pattern in gestural abstraction.

Two main aspects of my studio process were instrumental in realizing the creative

project: data collection and the visual translation of that information through rules-based making.

For research and data collection I used U.S. Department of Agriculture resources as a starting

point. I looked for patterns and substantive links between entities, such as the rise of government

subsidies supporting corn production, when it was actually farmed at a financial loss. I assigned

shape, size, and numbers to the data that will then be translated into imagery. I have had to

simplify my ideas and sort through data to make choices about what data was relevant and

needed to be visualized. The EV is a point of engagement with the corn industry in the United

States; it functions as a way for me to understand our devastated monoculture landscapes and the

widespread consumption of refined corn products, and to comprehend the financial structures

that continue to support the production of a product that is expensive in almost every way. The

EV also informs new processes, concept development, and ways of deployment for studio work.

Chapter Overview

Chapter One: Screen-Based Eco-Visualizations

Chapter One is a discussion of EV work whose primary mode of representation is the

screen. These EV artworks demonstrate innovative design, communication, concept, and context.

They are real-time and interactive, generating information and changing aesthetically via

dynamic data-sources. I discuss two EV projects whose concept and media function differently

while remaining examples of visualized ecological data. They address differing but connected

ecological concerns, including air quality and energy use. The artists and projects analyzed are

EcoArtTech (Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint), Eclipse; and Keith Deverell, Building Run.

These projects are relevant because they are interpretations of streaming, dynamic data that also

allow the audience opportunity for interpretation and analysis. I chose these projects because of

their varied compositional choices and the ways they engage sensing and technology.

The collaborative ecoarttech, formed by Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint, examines how

digital technologies can make ecological problems accessible. In their online EV, Eclipse, they

harness the information sharing of the web to create user-generated glitched imagery that

translates current air-quality in US national parks. In Eclipse, viewers can see the effects of

pollution imposed upon shared images of nature. Eclipse seeks to engage audiences removed

from the actual experience through a technological mediation.

While Eclipse addressed air pollution, Building Run engaged civic energy consumption.

Installed in 2013, Keith Deverell’s Building Run was a real-time video installation that

conceptualized five buildings as competing athletes in a daily race for greater energy efficiency.

The project documented real-time energy consumption using human avatars to represent each

building, each running to beat its own personal best. Building Run was an EV work specifically

for the “Sensing Sydney” project in Sydney, Australia.

Chapter Two: Multi-Dimensional and Multi-Modal Data Eco-Visualizations

Chapter Two is a discussion of EV work whose modes of representation are media other

than screen-based work, including discrete sculpture and physical installations. The artists

discussed use a variety of methods and materials to visualize ecological data. These interpretive

artists and projects include Andrea Polli’s Cloud Car and Particle Falls, Natalie Miebach’s The

Sandy Rides series, and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir. I chose these projects because they

are examples of EV situated beyond those that are screen-based: they are sculpture and

installation works. These are highly interpretive and artistic examples of EV. Miebach’s process,

forms, and final sculptures are particularly relevant to my creative project.

Polli’s EV works are primarily concerned with air quality and atmospheric conditions.

The first work, Cloud Car, is a site-specific EV employing static data that shows the direct

connection between the automobile and air quality. The car is fitted with equipment that

produces a cloud of mist, enveloping car and rider to make air tangible and visible. The audience

was invited to sit in the car accompanied by a guide and ponder their carbon footprint. The

second work, Particle Falls, is a large-scale projection driven by dynamic air quality data

collected with a nephelometer. Resembling a waterfall, the blue light projection is disrupted with

orange burst of light as air pollution is detected, giving the viewer immediate feedback.

Miebach’s eco-visualization work uses static data sets collected from weather data and

related information as a basis for sculpture. Her recent work translates data related to Hurricane

Sandy by employing basket weaving as a grid, plotting the hours of each day. Upon this grid data

is layered and interwoven in three-dimensional space. Miebach’s The Sandy Rides expands how

scientific data may be visually translated beyond graphs and diagrams into chaotic and playful

sculptures. Miebach explores visual complexity through EV works like O Fortuna, Sandy Spins,

The Last Ride, and The Ride in order to question our cultural fascination delicate coastal

ecosystems and our tendency to ignore climate change.

Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir is a bio-sensing EV artwork that aims to engage the public

on water quality and the unseen complexities of urban ecology. Consisting of a live colony of a

native species of mussels, the artwork monitors the water filtration activities of these organisms

and converts this data into sound, which is available for passersby who can listen to the mussel

choir in situ. Mussel Choir is an example of an eco-visualization that uses a dynamic data set and

variety of media to communicate in real time. Conceived as a way to both clean urban waterways

and support environmental awareness, Mussel Choir creates a one-way knowledge bridge

between humans and aquatic organisms.

Chapter Three: Sculpting Corn Production

Chapter Three is a discussion of my creative project, Sculpting Corn Production, a series

of discrete sculptures including Spiraling Corn Production, High-Fructose Towers, and Biotech

Silo. The body of this chapter is divided into three main sections. First, I describe the creative

project and the process / methodologies involved in its conception, creation, and presentation. At

this time I highlight data that informed the work as collected from key USDA sources, including

USDA Annual reports that provided financial data in labeled tables in millions of dollars,

categorized by net enacted, estimated, and budgeted outlays in every area. In addition, USDA

user-driven farming databases provided far-reaching, geographically subdivided numerical data.

Each of the discrete sculptures is made from cut paper in an evolving process of data translation

into form. They begin with a straightforward representation of data from corn production since

1866, to a comparison of corn sweetener data from selected years, and finally to plotting of 15

years of data that shows widespread industrial adoption of genetically-modified corn crops.

Second, I position the work in relation to the concepts and works discussed in the

previous chapters, outlining how my work exemplifies the broadened definition of EV. The

research study has resulted in conclusions that affect how I consider my own creative process,

and changed the way in which I approach studio work. I have looked specifically for links

between the creative and scholarly processes not obvious during the process. I specifically

discuss works that are important to the development of my process and studio work: of particular

relevance are Miebach’s static datasets and The Sandy Rides series.

In the concluding section, I look forward to future research and creative efforts. I discuss

how the investigative study has pointed to new areas for additional research, and how new

avenues and ideas are emerging for my concept development, process, and artwork. I outline

future works including Kinetic Light Instruments and Desert Cricket.

Conclusion

I conclude the writing with a review of the research and creative project, and discuss the

changes and future implications this work has on my process and methodology. I briefly discuss

how EV is transforming into legible, interpretive forms and representations for positive

ecological change. EV is shifting from being beautiful visualizations to forms that couple with

viable, doable actions that can aggregate into real systems change at a larger societal level as a

form of strategic design for changing the way we engage ecology in urban areas. The future of

EV is transforming as its forms become more complex. The future of EV is strategic design,

transforming and shaping policy frameworks, culture, and governance in the process of their

production. Future EV works require holistic frameworks, collaboration, and synthesis in

prototyping ideas and are indicative of a cultural acceptance that our environment is changing

and that we need to take action.

Chapter One: Screen-Based Eco-Visualizations

Introduction

Glitched, altered crowd-sourced online photographs tagged with the names of national

parks and a looping video of a woman running have one thing in common: both are data-driven

EV works. The screen is their primary mode of representation, and they are real-time, dynamic,

and networked visualizations of live, streaming data. They rely on a computational infrastructure

for their functionality, and demonstrate a range of representational forms, moving from a still

image dependent upon audience interaction for the final product to the presentation of a

condensed, looped video. In this Chapter I will discuss two artworks that are easily categorized

within Holmes’ definition of EV from 2007. Both offer a novel approach to display the real time

statistics of key environmental resources for the goal of promoting ecological literacy. Therefore,

eco-visualizations can be data-driven animations that display ecological information of any sort

in real time. The projects are site-specific, successfully deployed in their distinct spaces: first, as

an interactive online webpage; and second, as a physical installation in the courtyards of five

buildings in Sydney, Australia.

These EV projects exist as screen-based artifacts, translating environmental data into both

still and moving images. They visualize complex systems of environmental data and exemplify

both the beginnings and current trends of EV work. In this chapter, I will discuss both the

conceptual process and EV works of three artists (a collaborative group and an individual) that

are relevant within the broad field of data visualization, and to EV in specific. The diversity of

approaches to process and conceptual development, research, and data translation are especially

relevant to EV and set the precedents for my studio process. The artists and artworks include

Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint of EcoArtTech, Eclipse; and Keith Deverell, Building Run.

EcoArtTech and Deverell explore the range of screen-based EV artwork through the use of their

visual language and techniques of deployment: air pollution data is directly visualized as an

artifact of energy consumption and energy use data is expressed as a context-sensitive, collective

experience. Made evident are the idiosyncrasies inherent to translated, streaming data, including

loss of functionality and accessibility. Furthering the discourse regarding sustainable practices

and an environmentalist mindset that supports ecological preservation, they provide a framework

for ongoing discussion and research while disseminating data through the lens of aesthetics.

Environmental data regarding air quality, including the degradation of the atmosphere, and 24

hour per day energy use is presented to broad audiences. They introduce information artistically,

transforming the data into still images and streaming video, in order to communicate values

fostering a sustainable lifestyle to a broad audience.

These artists are actively addressing how we can be agents of change within our

environment; a commitment exemplified by their creative investment and efforts to communicate

an ethically directed response to the forces that are destroying ecosystem integrity. Their work is

experimental, visualizing environmental data in ways that are challenging, expressive,

abstracted, and participatory. Eclipse and Building Run are located at the intersection of science,

art, engineering, and social engagement, translating streaming, real-time air pollution and energy

use data. Both projects draw from powerful, networked communications worldwide to foster a

sense of relative immediacy and live connection with their audience. Networked and web-based

user connectivity is supported by streamed content and continuously updated data, with allows a

potential connection to coincident social realities that supports environmental awareness and

participation (Couldry, 355). Of particular relevance to my studio work is EcoArtTech’s process

of embracing conceptual dualisms and their simple approach to data sets. Both projects engage

technology as a fundamental part of human experience: the computer and digital media are used

both as tools to encounter nature and to assist with the adoption of energy-conscious habits. Both

projects ask the audience to embrace contradiction and assist with their mediated experience in

two curated environments: a rural landscape and an urban ecosystem. These data-driven EV

works prompt a sense of environmental awareness and are situated within the charged social

space of political ecology.

EcoArtTech: Air Quality as Visualized by Eclipse

Seeing and Changing Atmospheric Conditions

The United States legislative process has historically been slow to protect the atmosphere

(and individuals) from pollutants. From 1881 to the mid 1950s, there was very little legislation to

control air quality.30 When faced with concrete evidence in 1955, the United States finally

recognized the dangers facing public health and welfare, agriculture, livestock, and deterioration

of property on a national level.31 The vast physical geography of the continental United States

and the regional nature of the problems obscured the need for action on pollution. Geography

became geopolitics as the public, industry, and lawmakers weighed in to protect their particular

interests, whether it was environmental, economic, or political. As the problem air compounded,

30 The first clean air legislation starting in 1881 at the city level, and included Chicago and Cincinnati.

During that time, people experienced nausea and it was not uncommon for businesses to suspend operations

(Eisinger, 2010).

There was no regulation at the national level. Los Angeles experienced its first big smog in 1943 from cars

and industrial plants, with the number of dangerous smog days numbering 200 a year (McNally, 2010).

Similarly, in 1948 a deadly smog engulfed Donora, PA, killing 20 people and leaving another 7000 to

recuperate in hospitals (Williams, 2013).

31 The Air Pollution Control Act of 1955 was passed to study the issue, providing research and technical

assistance. Early studies of pollution focused on its physical, chemical, and technical traits while ignoring the social

aspects of the pollution (Fleming and Knorr, 1999).

the issue necessarily became a widely agreed-upon social construct before there could be any

change mandated by new laws. Environmental policy researcher Dr. José Luis Lezama notes that

environmental problems have a social dimension:

From this perspective, environmental problems depend on a process of social

construction and are identified by their perception and public recognition. A

problem may have a physical existence, but unless it is socially perceived and

assumed as such, the physical facts become socially irrelevant (2001).

Air pollution is a product of human activities in the environment but it does not become a

problem until people agree that it is. Air pollution and its abatement are products of social

space.32 Pollution has its own social ecology, and the conflict always take place within a natural

milieu, a space of atmospheric turbulence (Barker, 2012).

Protecting Visibility in National Parks

Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act sets a national

goal of preventing any future and abating any existing impairment of visibility caused by

human‐caused air pollution in congressionally designated areas where visibility is an important

value.33 Visibility, as a resource in national parks, is a complex concept encompassing technical

systems of measurement and psychophysical processes. Visibility is closely associated with

32 There are a number of researchers articulating environmental pollution, and the processes of control, as a

product of social space (Véron, 2005; Bickerstaff and Walker, 2001; Irwin and Walker, 1999; Macnaghten and

Jacobs, 1997; Gooch, 1996; Harrison, Burgess, and Filius, 1996; Burgess, Harrison, and Maiteny, 1991.

33 Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1963 in order to improve, strengthen, and accelerate programs for

the prevention and abatement of air pollution. Congress passed another Clean Air Act in 1970 to improve regulation

and increase enforcement authority. It proved too ambitious and needed amendments in 1977 for “non-attainment

areas,” or jurisdictions that were (and are) not able to meet the requirements. Acid rain and smog prompted an

amendment to control air pollution in 1990. The new amendments would impact regional economies, specifically

those dependent on the coal mining industry (EPA, 2013).

conditions that allow appreciation of the inherent beauty of landscape, namely the form, contrast

detail, and color shifts of near and distant features.34 Parks where visibility is an important value-

added component to the natural experience include the Grand Canyon, the Great Smokies,

Shenandoah, and Yosemite. For example, Yosemite is designated a Class One area, which grants

the park the highest level of federal air quality protection.35 Without the effects of pollution, a

natural visual range in the West is almost 140 miles. In contrast, pollution can limit visibility to a

short 33 miles. The biggest air pollution threats to parks like Yosemite are anthropogenic

emissions of fine particulate matter from vehicles, industry, and pesticide use. The EPA’s state

haze plans also must include a long‐term strategy for making reasonable progress toward

meeting the national goal.36 The EPA’s Visibility Site displays common air pollutants, visibility

trends graphs, and photographs for each of its listed parks (Figure 1). The photographs are direct

comparisons of moments with pristine, unobstructed views and days where haze is the dominant

element of the image, concealing and obscuring landscape features. These Class One parks and

wilderness areas are the zones of dialogue for the collaborative duo EcoArtTech.

Artists Leila Nadir and Cary Peppermint began collaborating in 2005 as EcoArtTech.

Nadir is an Afghan-American critic, scholar, artist, and creative writer, and Peppermint is a

digital artist whose early works examined the ways in which online spaces effected our

expectations of the environment. Both currently teach at the University of Rochester.

34 Malm discusses the technical and psychological aspects of visibility as a resource (Malm, 1999).

35 This protection was furthered with the 1999 Regional Haze Rule that implemented strategies to improve

visibility on the most impaired days, and to ensure that no degradation occurs on the clearest days (Schichtel, 2014).

36 Under EPA’s implementing regulations, the plans must show progress over the next 10 years as states are

required to revise their haze plans every ten years and submit the revised plans to EPA for approval (EPA, 2012).

Although recognizing that they have a division of labor as EcoArtTech, they do not have

a conscious strategy for how they work conceptually:

Ideas emerge for us out of an ongoing, sometimes unconscious, sometimes over-

analytical, conversation that meanders through the digital/physical places we

inhabit, whether we are in our studio or the kitchen…We are committed to an

experimentality in process that involves interaction, exchange, exposure, and

research that can take advantage of the energy created by blurring the lines

between self and other. Proprietary works and the myth of the “genius" artist are

detrimental to emerging modes of working, especially with regard to new media

art production (Kosmaoglou, 2012).

They resist categorization, allowing new definitions and conflations of the self to emerge. They

are most interested in staging fluid experiences that ask difficult questions and interrupt a sense

of certainty. “When assumptions fail, things fall apart, and we can’t depend on what we think we

know, that is when our most creative thinking takes place. These are exciting, experimental

moments” (Ibid).

Their projects explore industrialized, urbanized, and digitized culture through aesthetic

experiences of food, ecology, media, and memory, rendering endangered food and

environmental habits visible and practicable. EcoArtTech merges old and new ideas, including

biological systems, primitive technologies, meditation practices, varied theories of nature and

modernity, and new media technologies into participatory, interactive situations. They conceive

the environment as a wide variety of networked systems, including biological habitats, global

exchanges, industrial grids, digital networks, and the democratic imagination. Their work

investigates the idea of “industrial amnesia,” a cultural memory disorder wrought by our

contemporary routines of living. Industrial amnesia is a depreciation of knowledge, resulting

from the change of products and processes which render old knowledge obsolete. Knowledge

can also decay because records and practices are lost or difficult to access.37 This type of

knowledge depreciation is an idea revisited further in the discussion.

EcoArtTech positions art as an urgent and necessary intervention operating between

utility and imagination in order to remediate industrial amnesia. Their objective is not to propose

specific solutions to the global environmental health crisis. Instead, processes reliant on

participation are a medium for aesthetic experiences both unsettling and creatively stimulating.

In doing so, they provoke their audience to ask questions left unanswered by the corporate

structures of industry, science, and entertainment media. EcoArtTech work collaboratively with

participants, seeing themselves as both artists and healers facilitating the healing of modern

bodies and the recovery of memory for modern minds.

For example, in a recent participatory project, OS Fermentation (2015), EcoArtTech

worked collaboratively with local communities (human, bacterial, and ecological) to revive

historic food practices (Figure 2). Included in the series was a reading group about microbiology,

public health, and the industrial food system; a hands-on fermentation workshop for making

veggie krauts, hard cider, and wine; a fermentation tasting party, where participants enjoyed their

creations in a communal setting; and a gallery installation of microbial “selfies” and chalkboard

notes made by participants. OS Fermentation was interactive, reviving the ancient practice of

fermentation as an alternative to industrial processes of food preservation, such as refrigeration

and pasteurization. Participants created a jar of fermented vegetables, an unfolding microcosm to

be part of a future meal to boost digestion and immunity. The installation included digital prints

created by custom electronics and software that allow microbes to take their own “selfies” and

add manipulation effects to their images based on the shifting pH levels, oxygen, and color

37 There are a number of documented, institutional losses of information, including the Steinway piano

company and the original film stock from the Star Wars Trilogy (Argote, 1999, 53).

values of the fermentation process (Figure 3 and Figure 4). Though not an EV work specifically

because it is not informed by a dataset, OS Fermentation was a viral performance of food

independence from industrialized food systems and an affective reimagination of an active

relationship with diet, nutrition, and edible substances. OS Fermentation exemplifies how artists

transform a data-driven, digital practice into one that is interactive and multi-modal at its core.

A critical part of their practice includes the implementation of technology as a tool for

knowledge and creative expansion, displacing technology from its role of pacifier and

entertainer. In their work, mobile technology and digital networks are revealed to be fundamental

components of the way we experience our environment. EcoArtTech rejects the dualism found in

contemporary environmental thought, wherein technology is the cause of the ecological crisis

and therefore must be abandoned; or the opposite approach where technological progress will

save the world, and trusting in corporate and scientific innovation is essential. They see another

possibility:

We see humans as essentially technical beings: human-animals literally cannot

survive without technics…How do we engage technology sustainably and in a

way that supports creativity and freedom? And if human beings are technical

beings, relying on nature and culture simultaneously, is it even possible to

distinguish between what’s natural and what’s not? Isn’t our sustenance

dependent upon not only our biological needs (clean air, water and food) but also

our cultural practices, beliefs, and imagination? (Kosmaoglou, 2012).

The environment is intertwined and mediated by electronic and digital technologies. Their

ongoing engagement with environmental science questions the notion that holds that the role of

the arts in the interdisciplinary exchange is to visualize or communicate knowledge produced by

scientists. EcoArtTech goes beyond the oversimplified relationship of visualizing data to disrupt

experience.

Eclipse

The political ecology of air pollution is the driving concept for the online EV work

Eclipse. Eclipse is an interactive EV application merging user-provided photographs of national

parks and wilderness areas with weather data, creating algorithmically derived glitch imagery,

ultimately presenting a visual interpretation of air quality (Figure 5). In 2008, EcoArtTech were

commissioned to create Eclipse for Turbulence, an organization that supports new and emergent

hybrid networked art forms.38 Notably, Eclipse has been exhibited at El Museo Cultural de Santa

Fe / Currents 2012: Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Ohio State University’s Pearl

Conard Gallery, University of Massachusetts–Boston’s Harbor Art Gallery, the Woodstock

Digital Media Festival, and Electronic Village Galleries at Penryn Town Hall (UK).39 In addition

to being exhibited within the space of galleries, Eclipse is online perpetually.

Building upon the dominant visual language of the EPA’s Visibility Site, Eclipse appears

as if published from a neutral governmental institution. The site purposefully employs early

2000’s website design where content was limited to small, centered windows on the screen. The

users do not have to search for anything, link to another page, or scroll through pages of content.

This cohesive design strategy is maintained throughout the site to focus users’ attention on the

windows, informational content, and support user’s awareness of their action and end result.

Eclipse opens to a welcome page that reads very much like an opened book with a center spine.

Centered in the browser window, the application’s portal is a medium grey ground with white

38 Turbulence is a project of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. (NRPA). Turbulence has commissioned

over 200 works and exhibited and promoted artists’ work through its Artists Studios, Guest Curator, and Spotlight

sections. Turbulence has remained at the forefront of the field by commissioning, exhibiting, and archiving the new

hybrid networked art forms that have emerged (Turbulence).

39 Curated by Frank Ragano and Mariannah Amster, the Currents Festival explored the role of technology

and the diverse applications of New Media in the arts (Currents, 2012).

text. On the left is a “Welcome” tab featuring how Eclipse functions. On the right is the title and

instructions for operation, beginning with Step One. The first action is a drop-down menu, where

the user chooses a National Park, forest, monument, or state park. After making the selection, the

user clicks to Step Two, which opens the next page. Page two features educational information

regarding AQI conditions, how they are measured, and their corresponding color charts for both

American and Canadian rating systems. Users then proceed to Step Three to see Eclipse’s

abstraction: the final, altered image. Each step of the portal is reliant upon the user’s click to

move to the next step, which emphasizes personal responsibility within the environment, without

being prescriptive about the experience. Though the encounter with the site is serious, the

outcome – a photograph digitally “etched” with current air quality data – is playful, surprising,

and open-ended.

Eclipse’s application functions perform three distinct operations to document and

visualize dynamic, real-time weather data. To begin, the application searches for images tagged

with a park’s name from the image sharing and hosting website Flickr. These images sourced by

Eclipse represent a range of styles, subjects, and professionalism. Eclipse data-scrubs for

particular naming tags, for example, “Yosemite” or “Yellowstone.” Then Eclipse searches for

the real-time Air Quality Index (AQI) from cities within a 65-mile radius in order to visually

reveal air pollution data.40 AQI is calculated from the five major air pollutants and particulate

matter regulated by the Clean Air Act including ground-level ozone, particle pollution, carbon

monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Finally, Eclipse processes the AQI through an

algorithm in order to expand upon the air pollution information, which glitches the chosen image

based on the level of pollution. Higher pollution levels equate to a more distorted and unreadable

40 Air quality data is reported from across the United States (AirNow, 2015).

image through the imposition of intermittent mirroring, banding, deletion, file cropping, color

change, saturation, and contrast. The visual products of Eclipse are assembled through a process

of interaction, reiterating the ways in which the naturally conceived landscape is marked by its

interactive relationship with its human inhabitants. The result positions landscape imagery as a

production of many interacting elements, pointing towards anthropogenic action as the negative

force within that system.

Eclipse tapped into the ubiquitous participatory culture of the Internet, a place that is

driven by passive consumption. However, Eclipse alters the course of passive consumption by

transforming the site’s users into active producers. Media theorist Tim Barker notes that Eclipse

can be thought of as an assemblage of user-generated images residing together in an archive

wherein each image, and its set of associated metadata, adds to the meaning of all the others.

This reformulates the genre of landscape by framing it as a participatory

experience, where users actively engage with the creation of iconography,

engaging not merely with images but also with the cultural and ecological

significance of these images, and the experiences of other geographically distant

users (SAC, 2012).

Eclipse uses a technologically mediated set of practices via the screen to present the world as

an interactive and immersive system, made apparent as each click eclipses the original landscape

image.

A celestial eclipse is the partial or complete interception of the light of one component of

a binary star by the other. To eclipse something is to obscure its light; to reduce or take its

splendor, status, and reputation; and finally, to make it less outstanding or important by

comparison. In Eclipse, the photographed landscape - which is originally the subject of the image

- moves to the rear of the composition and becomes background. In doing so, the landscape

transforms into the substratum. The sourced, tagged images range from the extraordinary to the

banal, from mountain vistas to tree stumps to the local convenience store. Layered over the

image are digital glitches, color changes, and striations. Air and pollution emerge visually as the

subject and obscure these sourced images, some of which are emblematic of the concept of

nature as untouched, wild, and unspoiled. Each image is rendered flawed through interaction,

creating through the process a new narrative, one that underscores human responsibility.

At the time of this writing, the functionality of the site was compromised, as the Flickr

images would not load, thus no AQI conditions could be visualized in a final image.

Exemplifying a depreciation of knowledge, Eclipse is crippled as a web application, a result of

accessibility issues. However, the site was operational in the past and numerous screen grabs are

available in an image search. Website functionality is a concern with Internet applications and

platforms that are reliant on external sources of data. The problem could be anything from

broken links, to a loss of network or host negotiation with Flickr, to a breakdown of an

application program interface (API), the building blocks of Internet applications. For example, it

could be making JAVA- or Flash-based calls to an API that does not exist anymore. The site is

Flash-based, and it could be that my browsers are blocking and disabling Flash sites. However,

Eclipse is being archived at the Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art, Cornell University,

Ithaca, New York.41

Eclipse is a presentation of ecosystem trauma, presented in a series of disjointed images.

Users triggered layered content, thus providing a condition for individual experience rich with

emotional content. With Eclipse, information visualization has been used to give a new sense of

materiality to the atmosphere, repotentialising the air as an informational entity (Barker, 2012).

41 Under the sponsorship of The Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, the Rose Goldsen Archive of

New Media Art serves as a research repository of new media art and resources. The curatorial vision emphasizes

digital interfaces and artistic experimentation by international, independent artists (Rose Goldsen Library of New

Media Art, 2015).

Air pollution is not an annoyance to be seen through. It becomes impossible to ignore within

Eclipse, where users can immediately see AQI data as an altered image - or in the case of clean

air, an unchanged and pristine view of someone’s digital photograph of nature. Eclipse is a

participatory project in a world where the discourse on environmentalism is dominated by

science. EcoArtTech recognizes that science has been positioned as the icon of truth and

objectivity, at the top of the hierarchy of knowledge, a discipline that has the answers to global

crises. However, they challenge the position of science as the arbiter of the right answers to

ecological problems. Instead, they position the audience as agents of change. Eclipse welcomes

public participation in the ongoing project of trying to have a sustainable world, to arrive at new

ways to support a healthy environment, starting with awareness and recognition of being part of

the digital network:

For us, the job of artists, hackers, theorists, and creative workers is to interrupt

that drive, reduce the speed, and allocate time to rediscover our place, our bodies,

and our relationships to others, nonhuman and human. EcoArtTech stages

opportunities for moments of mindfulness, and for reflection about what it feels

like to be a technical human-animal dwelling in the here and now (Chester, 2014).

EcoArtTech invites users to ask, participate, and interact, while rejecting the idea that they have

to passively wait for answers. Eclipse’s glitched images work to revise our assumption of parks

as immaculate and untouched space. Our remodeled recognition of nature as a place negatively

impacted by pollution encourages critical thought regarding our environment. Eclipse connects

environmental data to place, contextualizing air quality data and making this knowledge visually

accessible and visceral.

Keith Deverell: Visualizing Energy Use with Building Run

The Shifting Landscape of Energy

Renewable energy is slowly providing alternatives to fossil fuels and changing the energy

landscape.42 However minute the production of renewable energy, the shift of resources allows

different perspectives for understanding energy production and consumption, providing an

urgent lens through which to discuss human-environment relationships and their embedded

politics.43 Central to energy production is governmental management of the worlds’ electricity

providers: political institutions structure the rules of supply and demand, and are a central

driving force of the ecological crisis by maintaining the industrialist, fossilist, and capitalist way

of living.44 The changes within global energy production shift the geopolitical order, unsettling

social, economic, and ecological landscapes.

As energy issues become critically important to society’s ecological and economic

survival, they become politically contested. Contradictions are rampant, and renewable energy

resources, including wind and solar, spark contentious debates. Some argue that renewable

42 In 2012, global electricity production totaled 21,532 billion kilowatt hours. In contrast, global renewable

energy generation totaled 4,715 billion kilowatt hours. (EIA, 2015).

43 Willow and Wylie highlight the need for ethnographic studies of the tumultuous social and physical

transformations resulting from, and produced by, the unfolding frontier of energy production. They examine how

intercommunity connections are vital to recognizing the shared structural conditions produced by the oil and gas

industry's expansion. Of particular interest is their examination of the sequestration of information and agnotology

(the deliberate production of ignorance), divide and conquer tactics, and shared experiences of risk and embodied

effects (Willow and Wylie, 2014).

Political scientist Richard Heinberg notes that, “Energy is, by definition, humanity’s most basic source of

power, and since politics is a contest over power (albeit social power), it should not be surprising that energy is

politically contested (Heinberg, 2014).

44 Energy policy is created through complex social institutions (Brand, 2014; Keohane and Victor, 2013;

Min, 2012; Yergin, 2012; Nadaï and van der Horst, 2010).

energy could supply 100% of demand by 2030.45 Others challenge these theories with claims of

hidden financial costs, land use problems, and grid limits (Trainer, 2012; Gilbraith et al., 2013).

Analysts claim that the world will be worse off economically if we rely on renewables.46 Another

report argues the opposite (SolaVis, 2014). Ecologist Charles Hall is pessimistic regarding the

promise of solar photovoltaic (PV) and surmises that it will not be able to support an industrial

economy.47 The solar industry claims otherwise.48 The discussion of wind power has similarly

embedded contradictions, with some arguing that global wind capacity has been over-estimated

while others claim that it could be a primary source of near-zero emissions power.49

As energy conversations are being contested, they are also becoming more common.

Whole landscapes and civic identities are being restructured through the process. A number of

cities and regions are committing themselves to reducing energy consumption and carbon

emissions, and setting strict standards for future dates. A sweeping commitment by the European

Union promises to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. However, large-scale policy changes are

45 Renewable energy is a contentious subject (Jacobson and Delucci, 2009).

46 Tverberg argues that renewables may not reduce carbon monoxide emissions (2014).

47 Prieto and Hall present an energy analysis of a large-scale, real-world deployment of photovoltaic (PV)

collection systems representing 3.5 GW of installed, grid-connected solar plants in Spain (2013).

48 Energy Independence claims that Solar power alone could provide all of the energy Americans consume

(American Energy Independence, 2013).

49 De Castro et al. use a top–down approach to evaluate the physical–geographical potential and, for the

first time, to evaluate the global technological wind power potential, while acknowledging energy conservation

(2011).

Marvel et al. use a climate model to estimate the amount of power that can be extracted from both surface

and high-altitude winds, considering only geophysical limits. They argue that there is enough power in Earth’s

winds to be a primary source of near-zero-emission electric power as the global economy continues to grow through

the twenty-first century, with considerations (2013).

less prevalent than regional commitments.50 For example, Sydney, Australia, has committed to

reducing carbon emissions by 70% and adopting 100% renewable energy resources for heating

and cooling by 2030.51 As a site for ongoing conversations regarding energy, the city of Sydney

wants to establish itself as a civic leader with outstanding environmental performance and new

‘green’ industries driving economic growth. They are working to reduce their carbon emissions,

and establish a network of green infrastructure to reduce energy, water and waste water demands.

Part of achieving these goals includes involving the public in the process of change and

transformation, to engage a broad audience in energy awareness. The City of Sidney is the site

for fostering transformation and environmental awareness, and is the place for artist engagement

for “Sensing Sydney,” a collaboration between the arts organization Carbon Arts and the City of

Sydney in 2013. For the event, invited artists brought sustainability data alive in ways that

celebrated and advanced Sydney’s collective efforts to address environmental challenges.

Building Run was Sensing Sydney’s public commission to promote energy awareness, using the

city as a canvas for creation and story telling.

Building Run

Visualizing energy consumption was the driving concept for the EV Building Run.

Installed in 2013, Building Run was a video installation that conceptualized five buildings as

competing athletes in a daily race for greater energy efficiency (Figure 6). The project

50 The state of California has committed to emission reduction by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050 (ARF,

2014).

New York City has committed to reducing carbon emissions by 2950 (NYCMOS, 2015).

Four other U.S. cities have committed to changing their carbon footprint through a variety of means

including Denton, Texas; Dubuque, Iowa; Santa Cruz, California; and Albuquerque, New Mexico (Tallman, 2013).

51 Sustainable Sydney 2030 is a set of goals set for the city to help make it as green, global and connected

as possible by 2030. The plan is transformative for the way residents live, work and play (City of Sydney, 2014).

documented real-time energy consumption using human avatars to represent each building in a

competition to beat its own personal best. The artist, Keith Deverell, created Building Run

specifically for Sensing Sydney.

Deverell is a Melbourne based artist who also has a professional background in

installation design and data visualization. Deverell is interested in the gesture of the human body,

using the metaphor of the horizon line as a way to locate the subject. Other topics examined

include the representation of identity, the embedded politics of place, and observational and

documentary forms of sound and video, with an emphasis on the destabilisation of documentary

forms within the field of video art. Deverell questions the idea of an overall “truth” as expressed

by corporate, scientific, and governmental systems. His work explores the possibility for

multiple, coexistent narratives promoting environmental and social awareness that are

emblematic of the potential for change.

Building Run was produced in part by the organization Carbon Arts, a unique

organization which generates and evaluates creative models for engaging society in imagining

and shaping a more sustainable future (Carbon Arts,2015). Carbon Arts is a new model for arts

and ecology advocacy, forging connections and partnerships with artists, businesses, the sciences

and government. Their projects foster innovation and dialogue between science, the arts,

government, business sectors, and the public as a means to address contemporary environmental

challenges. Building Run was a cross-sector collaboration, bringing arts, environmental and

sustainability professionals, businesses, and the city together both within and across the

participating organizations. The project itself was a work of many, including a stylist, Emina

Dzananovic; installation design by Foolscap Studio; and additional programming by Jayson

Haebich. Brought together for the collaboration were Investa Office, a major real estate

company; Deutsche Bank, a global financial services provider; and Buildings Alive, which

provides technical information and analysis to optimize the performance of buildings.52 Five

green buildings that have taken energy efficiency measures were chosen as sites. Each supplied

data through management systems every 15 minutes, including 255 Elizabeth Street, Deutsche

Bank Place, BT Tower, 400 George Street, and Customs House.

Each of the five sites had a screen with a young female running avatar, whose twenty-

four hour performance timespan was compressed to forty minutes, with the date and time on the

display for the entirety of the video. The energy use data was compressed into a forty-minute

span to reveal the previous day’s data, allowing it to be played on continuous loop. Building Run

employed a commercial engine – Buildings Alive – which provided all the streaming data. The

dataset contained energy usage in 15 minute increments, translated in the EV every 15 seconds.

By noting the time and the effort of the runner, Deverall intended that the viewer would be able

understand the energy profile of a building throughout the day and night. Since the avatars were

next to each other, viewers could compare each building. Deverell expanded the data set by

comparing the various data streams, which enabled the audience to understand each building’s

consumption relative to other users. Finally, the information was abstracted through symbolic

representation. Low energy use corresponded to a faster, more efficient race. The more energy

that was consumed lead to signs of exhaustion in the runner. Deverell noted that during the

course of the exhibit, each building was trying to achieve its “Personal Best,” or PB.53 “It's

52 “Buildings Alive” provides automated feedback and technical analysis to help optimize the performance

of buildings (Buildings Alive, 2015).

53 Personal Best (PB) is determined by comparing today’s energy consumption with the building’s

predicted performance for today based on modeling of historical data and prevailing conditions, such as the weather.

Buildings Alive produces both the predicted performance (or personal best) as well as actual performance.

playing with the metaphor of personal bests more than a race against each other, so they can all

win…At the end of the race if they get a personal best [for energy usage] the video is happy, it's

celebratory, and if it's not [a personal best] then they're a bit more forlorn. There's a humor and a

poetics to the whole work” (Crozier, 2013). At each site all five runners (screens) were adjacent,

so the audience could compare their respective performance and levels of fatigue.

Visually, the project’s physical manifestation was tightly controlled with polished lines,

heavy, large materials, large individual footprints in each site, and matching citywide

promotional materials (Figure 7). It was fabricated at the scale of soaring corporate foyers,

including 50” LED screens, runways that look like the starting gates at a racetrack with

accompanying handholds, a variety of printed materials and explanatory, educational signage.

From the track, viewers faced an oversize black facade that housed five screens and the time

clock, displaying a green LED stopwatch. Deployed in five different locations, the project faced

design challenges. Tufte argues that first and foremost, the data needs to be clear. Unfortunately,

the data remained ambiguous because of mode of representation for the data translation. This

was partially due to lacking a monosemic system of signs: Building Run did not have an onsite

legend for explanation, which would have assisted in the comprehension of the streaming video

imagery and allowed audiences to understand when the buildings were achieving their PB and at

what level they were running.

This comparison is shown on a continual basis, as in a sporting event so that we can see if the runner is on-

track to receiving PB at any one time. The bar at the top shows today’s performance and the bar at the bottom of

each screen shows the PB. If the building is on track to achieve a PB, then the top bar will turn green other wise it

will be red. In this way, one can tell at a glance which buildings are ‘winning.’

As the runner completes the race, she will stop and pick up her bottle of water and mobile phone. Upon

glancing at the phone she’ll learn whether or not she beat her PB. At this stage she will either crouch down and look

disappointed (not achieved PB), or stay standing looking sky ward and smile (achieved PB). It is entirely possible

that all buildings achieve a PB on the same day (Newcombe, 2013, 24).

Building Run was a metaphor for how humans’ use affects the health of a building.

Deverell saw the possibility for buildings to be humanized architecture, considering their place in

a corporate fitness program:

Building Run is a video installation that poetically comments, through the

language of sport and the healthy body, on how we as occupants affect the health

of a building, in this case its energy consumption. In developing this artwork, I

was interested in the idea that buildings are living and breathing organisms –

much like human beings – and that a healthy body image is as relevant to

buildings as it is to humans (Deutsche Bank, 2013).

Deverell’s choice of a strong female athlete counteracts contemporary media, where women are

more likely to be depicted in a sexually suggestive manner than males, a language which

marginalizes women and reinforces male dominance in the sporting world.54 As the runners

worked to achieve their PB, their effort – and the building’s energy consumption – was indicated

by a “Levels” icon, styled similarly to that of one on a treadmill. The framing of the image

provided another visual cue as to energy consumption. At the slower speeds we are the farthest

visual distance from the runner and her entire body is captured within the frame, corresponding

to little energy use. At medium speeds the camera zooms in closer. At the fastest speeds only the

torso remains in the frame, corresponding to the most energy use. The runner was featured

wearing a variety of outfits meant to symbolize the emotional sensibility of each building. By

giving each building a discrete personality, Deverell intended to clarify the energy data. Five

different roles were presented: the “Quiet Achiever,” wearing matching purple and accessorizing

with a water bottle; the “Sophisticated,” covering up in all black; the “Tech Savvy,” in a sports

bra and sweatpants; the “Sunny Outlook,” in a red hooded zip jacket and sports bra; and finally,

54 From 1990-1997, National Collegiate Athletic Association media guide cover photographs were

analyzed, with gender differentiation in the depiction of women and men athletes. Women athletes are less likely to

be portrayed as active participants in sport and more likely to be portrayed in passive and traditionally feminine

poses (Buysse, and Embser-Herbert, 2004).

the “Fashionista,” in a floral jacket and yoga pants.55 Deverell claimed that these choices

represented the character of each building, however, none of the workout clothing was specific

enough to render them discernable as separate characters without explanatory text.

Building Run worked double-duty to reveal energy data and to express an equally

complex position in the broader discussion around environmental sustainability. In using large,

networked screens, the installation required electricity, which was also the object of much

criticism, an issue that remains unresolved in the project. However, Building Run can be

considered an example of strategic design; a term used by the theorist Dan Hill to describe works

that operate in multiple dimensions:

Strategic design is about applying the principles of traditional design to "big

picture" systemic challenges such as healthcare, education and climate change. It

redefines how problems are approached and aims to deliver more resilient

solutions (Hill, 2012).

Projects employing strategic design frequently transform and shape policy frameworks, culture,

and governance in the process of their production. Hill calls for developing holistic frameworks,

for collaboration, and for deploying synthesis (rather than just analysis) in prototyping ideas. In

this context, the artist has to engage the “dark matter,” the soft structures of policy, culture, and

governance that include civic organizations, culture, rules, and regulations that drive the space of

the city. Dark matter is the nebulous context that can allow or disallow change.56 Dutch

architectural historian Wouter Vanstiphout articulates that visionaries engage dark matter:

55 The clothes are modeled on headless, armless mannequins, rather than modeled on the runner

(Newcombe, 2013, 14-15).

56 The concept of dark matter is drawn from theoretical physics. It is believed to constitute approximately

83% of the matter in the universe, yet is virtually imperceptible. It neither emits nor scatters light, or other

electromagnetic radiation. It is believed to be fundamentally important in the cosmos, we simply cannot be without

it, and yet there is essentially no direct evidence of its existence, and little understanding of its nature.

If you really want to change the city, or want a real struggle, a real fight, then it

would require re-engaging with things like public planning for example, or re-

engaging with government, or re-engaging with large-scale institutionalised

developers. I think that’s where the real struggles lie, that we re-engage with these

structures and these institutions, this horribly complex ‘dark matter.’ That’s where

it becomes really interesting (Hyde, 2011).

Building Run and Carbon Arts worked to establish an ongoing conversation of transformative

change within the civic mindset.

Building Run enabled a productive and reflexive discussion with residents of the existing

state of environmental responsibility within the contemporary smart, networked city. Three key

groups comprised the audience, including the general public, the tenants of the building, and the

buildings’ managers. Post-project interviews revealed that the building’s managers were

instrumental in actualizing changes based upon data: their work directly affected the

performance of the runners. Revealed to the interested public were the infrastructure systems of

private buildings. Tenants actively engaged the idea of sustainability and energy conservation,

desiring change, their sense of place and identity heightened through the placement within the

lobby of their buildings. This began a process towards the move for an open-data society,

demanding that organizational, policy, and regulatory environments change to support energy

efficiency.

As an experimental EV work, Building Run allowed discussion of the feasibility of data-

driven artwork and its multi-pronged motivation, while exploring the dominant framing

narratives of technology and environmental data within an urban setting. The collaborations

necessary to make Building Run cemented relationships necessary for fostering future energy

efficiency challenges. Tenants of nearby buildings expressed the desire to become more

sustainable. The power of Building Run lies in how the work redistributes public attention in

order to shift perception and motivate change. As a powerful symbol and motivator, Building

Run served to contextualize the role that green buildings play, together with the communities that

inhabit them, in achieving long-term sustainability goals by drawing the audience into a more

intimate relationship with the surrounding urban infrastructure and environmental health

indicators. While giving voice to the artist and organizations outside the corporate agendas

dominating the cityscape, strategic EV works like Building Run work as a cultural motivator.

Conclusion

Both Eclipse and Building Run are screen-based EV works, examples of networked,

dynamic data. Though their conception, process, and mode of representation are quite different,

they rely upon a computational infrastructure for their functionality. Eclipse is a still image

dependent upon audience interaction for the final product, reiterating the ways in which the

naturally conceived landscape is marked by its interactive relationship with its human

inhabitants. Eclipse’s result positions landscape imagery as a production of many interacting

elements. Though the encounter with the site is serious, the outcome – a photograph digitally

“etched” with current air quality data – is playful, surprising, and open-ended. Building Run is a

small series of condensed, looped videos representative of five buildings in a race towards

achieving their personal best energy conservation. Building Run exemplified strategic design, a

process that has the potential to stimulate civic transformation. These EV works offer new

avenues for the presentation and interpretation of data, and ask us to examine the very ways we

engage data and technology.

In the next chapter I will discuss EV works that exemplify the broadened definition of

EV through their mode of representation, including Andrea Polli’s Cloud Car and Particle Falls,

Nathalie Miebach’s The Sandy Rides, and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir. These EV works

go beyond the screen to offer unique ways for the presentation and interpretation of data,

demonstrating a range of three-dimensional presentation, from discrete objects and sculpture to

dynamic site-specific installation. I claim that these projects which are beyond the boundaries set

by EV literature to be EV in terms of both their content and function. These artists are actively

addressing continuing environmental damage by exploring ways to visualize environmental data

in ways that are exciting and expressive.

Chapter Two: Multi-Modal Eco-Visualizations

Introduction

Cars enveloped in a pulsing, atomized mist; pixelated “waterfalls” of light moving down

a building; spiraling, miniature amusement parks constructed from toys, and singing mussels all

share a common quality: each is driven by environmental data and the artist’s need to address

environmental and biodiversity degradation. They are all part of recent EV artworks that move

beyond the screen in a variety of ways that explore other modes for representing data. While

Chapter One discussed primarily screen-based EV works like Eclipse and Building Run that

relied on computers and the Internet as a live source of information, Chapter Two features

artworks that exemplify the broadened definition of EV. They demonstrate a range of three-

dimensional presentation, from discrete objects and sculpture to dynamic site-specific

installation.

As such these EV projects use a variety of visual and audio materials in order to visualize

complex systems of environmental data and function as cultural critique. It is precisely these

projects without screens which are beyond the boundaries set by EV literature that I claim to be

EV in terms of both their content and function. In this chapter, I will discuss both the conceptual

process and recent EV works of three artists that are important to the larger field of data

visualization, and to EV in particular. The diversity of approaches to research, data translation,

and mode of representation are especially relevant to the broader definition of EV and to my own

studio process. The artists and artworks include Andrea Polli, Cloud Car and Particle Falls;

Nathalie Miebach, The Sandy Rides; and Natalie Jeremijenko, Mussel Choir. These artists are

redefining EV artwork by exploring the fluid language of data through three-dimensional,

materialized form and a variety of media. These artists are actively addressing continuing

environmental damage, exploring ways to visualize environmental data in ways that are

expressive and educational, and in the case of Jeremijenko (and to a lesser extent, Polli),

reformulating social space to support environmental awareness. The EV artworks discussed in

this chapter are located at the intersection of science, art, engineering, and social engagement,

deciphering data pertaining to air pollution, weather events, and aquatic habitat. Of particular

relevance to my studio work is Miebach’s process and studio work, however, every artist and

project discussed informs my work. Each featured EV work abstracts the data to depict a variety

of intangible concepts that work to bridge the divide between scientific knowledge and public

perception. Some of these intangible concepts revealed by these EV are of a psychological

nature, including an emotional response (to poor air quality), a sense of personal intimacy and

cultural disillusionment (with a weather event), and a sense of being a part of a larger system (as

in an urban aquatic ecosystem). Each artist has expressed feelings similar to solastalgia, and

work to heal themselves and overcome solastalgia by finding a connection with living things and

life processes on this planet.

Polli, Miebach, and Jeremijenko collect information into both static and dynamic datasets

in order to translate environmental data into three-dimensional and audio forms in relatable,

tangible, and abstracted ways. A static dataset is the substrate for both Polli’s Cloud Car and

Miebach’s The Sandy Rides; however, the two artists’ datasets are different in that the former

EV’s dataset is simple, presented in ways that are straightforward and denotative, while the latter

EV’s is layered and complex, presenting it in ways that are chaotic and playful. Both Polli’s

Particle Falls and Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir employ dynamic datasets, and while I did not use

a dynamic dataset in my own work, their approach to data collection, conceptual development,

information translation, and interpretation for a final form informed my studio project. The final

example, Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir, is not only a complex eco-visualization but goes another

step to offer a long-term way to improve the environment.

These three artists are helping us imagine and navigate a possible environmentally

healthy future in visceral ways. They are creating meaning from constantly growing data sets,

establishing an evolving and exploratory language that investigates, appropriates, and reveals the

culture and ecology that both generates and responds to data streams. Their new language, with

data translation at its core, recognizes that we have entered into the Anthropocene. Here, within

the larger context of nature, artists are making meaning with data with eco-visualization.

In this chapter I discuss each EV work, including the content type of data sets both

dynamic and static, and media both digital and non-digital; the functional issues of form;

aesthetic issues, including visuality, site-specificity, and the ways in which each individual EV

work offers a critique of contemporary cultural practices. I also look to the aesthetics of

governance of EV, considering how contemporary EV projects may reiterate the modes of

industrial production in order to engage, decode and critique them. I position EV not only as a

sensemaking tool for complex environmental data, but also as a way to see how we function

within our immediate community in order to make positive environmental change.

Andrea Polli: Visualizing Atmospheric Pollution with Cloud Car and Particle Falls

Particulate matter (PM) pollution can be lovely, contributing to spectacular red sunsets,

the suspended particles scattering radiation both enhancing the red and removing the cooler

violets and blues in the spectral palette.57 PM pollution is also dangerous, causing environmental

57 Particles of any kind will make the sky brighter at the expense of purity of color. Molecules and small

particles like manufactured aerosols scatter light in a similar way to molecules of nitrogen and oxygen (Ballantyne,

2007).

degradation58 and a host of health issues. PM is a mixture of extremely small particles and liquid

droplets, categorized by size: inhalable coarse particles and fine particles.59 Size is directly

linked to the potential for causing a wide range of health problems,60 with those particles that are

10 micrometers in diameter or smaller being the most detrimental to human health. Common

primary particles are emitted directly from construction sites, unpaved roads, fields, smokestacks

or fires. These particles are large enough to be seen by the eye, including dust, dirt, soot, and

smoke. However, most of the PM pollution in the US consists of secondary particles that form in

complicated reactions in the atmosphere and require an electron microscope to be detected.

These fine and ultrafine particles (Figure 1), specks of waste at least 36 times finer than a grain

of sand, are often riddled with toxic combinations of sulfate, nitrate and ammonium ions,

hydrocarbons, and heavy metals. Small particles are the most dangerous because they pass

through the nose and throat to enter the lungs, at which point they can enter the bloodstream and

the neural pathways to the brain. About 147 million Americans are chronically exposed to PM

pollution that exceeds EPA standards and 14 percent of the total US population lives in areas that

The EPA reports on the long- and short-term causal relationship of PM to cardiovascular effects,

respiratory effects, cancer, mutagenicity, genotoxy, and mortality (EPA, 2009).

58 PM pollution causes widespread environmental damage because PM can be carried over long distances

by wind and then settle on ground or water. This can make lakes and streams acidic, change the nutrient balance in

coastal waters and large river basins, deplete the nutrients in soil, damage sensitive forests and farm crops, and affect

the diversity of ecosystems (EPA, 2012a).

59 Researchers categorize particles according to size, grouping them as coarse, fine and ultrafine. Coarse

particles fall between 2.5 microns and 10 microns in diameter and are called PM10-2.5. Fine particles are 2.5

microns in diameter or smaller and are called PM2.5. Ultrafine particles are smaller than 0.1 micron in diameter and

are small enough to pass through the lung tissue into the blood stream, circulating like the oxygen molecules

themselves (EPA, 2009).

60 We have known that ultrafine PM particles both cause and exacerbate respiratory problems that include

asthma, infections, and cancers of the lungs. Researchers suspect that PM contributes to a diverse range of disorders,

from heart disease to obesity, and now to degenerative brain diseases (Reuben, 2015).

suffer from short-term particle pollution (Figure 2).61 Any time the acrid smell of engine exhaust

is present, the immediate environment is very polluted. Ambient (outdoor air pollution) in both

cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 3.7 million premature deaths worldwide in 2012.62

88 percent of those premature deaths occurred in low- and middle-income countries, and the

greatest number in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions.63 However appalling these

statistics and grossly obvious the resulting health effects of airborne PM, people ignore air

pollution. Smoggy atmospheric conditions have become a mundane backdrop to a lifestyle

dependent upon fossil fuels. Culturally, we are suffering from an occluded vision of smog.

The artist Andrea Polli addresses PM pollution and the related phenomenon of not seeing

the haze with Cloud Car and Particle Falls, two site-specific EV works based on interpreted

environmental air quality data. Polli is an international environmental pioneer who merges

technological innovation and scientific inquiry with artistic expression. Interdisciplinary

collaboration is at the heart of her practice,64 and she has worked with the NASA/Goddard

61 The American Lung Association reports on the State of the Air in 2014. Though the US air quality is

better overall from a decade ago, air quality worsened from 2010-2012 (State of the Air, 2014).

A long-term study of six U.S. cities 1974 to 2009 suggests that cleaning up particle pollution had almost

immediate health benefits. They estimated that the U.S. could prevent approximately 34,000 premature deaths a year

if the nation could lower annual levels of particle pollution by 1 µg/m3 (Lepeule et. al., 2012).

62 If we take steps to keep the air clean as mandated through the Clean Air Act, we will prevent at least

230,000 deaths and save $2 trillion annually by 2020 (State of the Air, 2014).

63 The Environmental Protection Index offers a global “Interactive Air Pollution Map” that shows countries

suffering the worst air pollution. Data is revealed by city, satellite image, and dirtiest power plants. It color-codes

high-resolution air pollution data (specifically, fine particulate matter or PM2.5) from ground level (data reported by

the World Health Organization) and from the atmosphere (satellite-derived estimates calculated by researchers at

Dalhousie University). Regions shaded in black are exposed to very unhealthy or hazardous levels of particulate

matter, and dark red to red represents unhealthy amounts, using classifications from the EPA’s Air Quality Index

thresholds. The areas with safe air quality are colored yellow to orange. Locations of the world’s dirtiest power

plants, according to Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA), are also included (EPI, 2014).

64 An important long-time collaborator is her husband, Chuck Varga. Past projects involved (GWAR –

1985-1997) and fabricator for Blue Man Group, The Lion King, Where the Wild Things Are, Into the Woods,

Sweeney Todd, and Cirque Du Soleil. Currently Varga works as a scenic artist for Broadway productions such as

The Wedding Singer, Pajama Game, and for Disneyworld’s Cars (Pixar).

Institute Climate Research Group in New York City, the National Center for Atmospheric

Research and AirNow to realize major projects that translate data sets with visual elements and

the materiality of sound. Polli holds a doctorate in practice-led research from the University of

Plymouth in the UK, focusing on participatory media and social engagement in order to engage

the public with conceptual concerns. Polli is currently Professor of Art & Ecology with

appointments in the College of Fine Arts and the School of Engineering at the University of New

Mexico. She directs the Social Media Workgroup (SMW), a lab at the University's Center for

Advanced Research Computing.65

The Social Media Workgroup is closely tied with Polli’s creative practice. The SMW

investigates the social and ecological impacts of media technology through practice-based

research. Central to their work is the investigation of the phenomenology of a computer-

mediated experience, specifically if said experience can be as aesthetically and emotionally

powerful as a walk in the woods. They look to both manufactured and natural environments as

information spaces, places where data is constantly generated and interfaced with ubiquitous

computing platforms. At the heart of this is the investigation of the kinds of mobile and locative

media that can work to reveal environmental information and to help users approach real-world

understanding of the presented data. The SMW sees their role as one of translating the work of

scientists and engineers into a visual language that is meaningful to the public. One of SMW’s

projects, Skylight, is a user-interactive LED lightshow on the façade of the Albuquerque

Anderson-Abruzzo Balloon Museum. The light patterns are responsive to visitors’ text

messaging about the alternative energy potentials of solar and wind. Their focus with this project

65 UNM faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and outside experts work in interdisciplinary

collaborative teams to design and develop a wide variety of media tools, assets and events (Social Media

Workgroup, 2015).

and others (Cloud Car and Particle Falls) is in the design and production of encounters and

events, coupled with an ongoing analysis of social media as it contributes to larger cultural

practices and meaning making.

Conceptually, Polli defines the environment as “information space,” a place where data is

continually generated. Polli’s EV work uses data extracted from the environment as material

substrate: in Cloud Car as a static data set, and in Particle Falls as a dynamic, real-time data set.

Polli articulates that dynamic datasets revealed in real time can be problematic because of the

way people experience artwork: “No one can stand in front of a piece for 10 years to listen to

how, for example, climate in the arctic has changed, even though in climate terms that's a really

short period of time” (Knebusch, 2008). Long-term weather and air pollution data require a mode

of representation that compresses both the timeline and information translation to enable

understanding, however, Cloud Car and Particle Falls use limited datasets that do not require

time-based representation. They are examples of ambient EV, embedded into an everyday urban

environment within a public space. They evoke abstract natural phenomena, associating the

phenomena with alarms about the fragile environmental equilibrium through the translation of air

quality data into dynamic visuals. In this way, Polli works to make climate science accessible

and to communicate the urgency of the matter. She does this to counteract generalized human

apathy:

When you’re hearing things about climate change all the time, you just get tired

of it and you can’t keep responding. I think that’s the thing about people making

interesting artwork; it keeps some of these ideas fresh and offers new solutions

and new ideas. It helps people have access to the data and start to understand it. I

think it touches [people on] an emotional level. These artworks that I’m doing,

and other people are doing, interpreting data — compared to looking at a

spreadsheet or bar chart, it’s a lot more emotional. What we’re dealing with, with

climate change, is so big that whatever people come to the table with, you need to

bring those [skills]. Artists can have an impact, and designers, and journalists

(Thompson, 2012).

Polli makes invisible data palpable using everyday materials and technology as an aid in

participation: “I wouldn’t say that I’m really explaining anything as much as I’m promoting a

kind of emotional reaction,” (Yoerger, 2013). Polli’s work helps people who already care about

some of these issues to understand them better through tools that make it them more visible,

accessible and interesting. In order to achieve visibility, accessibility, and interest, Polli’s works

rely on “sonification,” a process that translates raw data (about everything from sulfur dioxide,

carbon monoxide, and ozone pollution to lightning, wave, and wind trends) into compelling and

audible forms.66

Polli believes that language needs to evolve in order to communicate and interpret

extraordinarily large, complex data sets. Polli asserts that the language for communicating

invisible data must evolve:

Part of that evolution must include the work of artists. How is the artistic

process of transforming data different from the process of transforming physical

material? Like a photograph, a data set is a representation, but unlike a

photograph, this representation can be entered, explored and transformed. Artists

have the opportunity to create works that have an impact through touching the

emotions of the audience, which can affect environmental understanding and

behavior (516 Arts).

With sonification, emotional content and feeling can be communicated with sound,

stimulating mindfulness and a comprehension of the forces at work behind the data. The

translation of data into sound can also be an aesthetic choice to materialize data as patterns and

percussive compositions. Polli’s past work, Sonic Antarctica (2008), combined tones, field

recordings and interviews with the weather station personnel of the South Pole. The work began

66 Sonification is the use of non-speech audio to convey information or perceptualize data. Auditory

perception has advantages in temporal, spatial, amplitude, and frequency resolution that open possibilities as an

alternative or complement to visualization techniques. For a complete understanding, see Herman et. al., 2001.

Polli offers explanation of her sonification, Atmospherics/Weather Works, which was an interdisciplinary

project that sonified storm data and other meteorological events, producing a highly detailed and physically accurate

model of weather systems used for research and forecasting (Polli, 2004).

with a helicopter ride, slowly descending into a world of glaciers and sub-zero readings;

recordings of freezing southern winds; the sounds of local fauna such as penguins; and the

discussion of researchers out in the field, who reveal how they feel the political heat for

revealing the inconvenient truth of global warming. Though neither Cloud Car nor Particle Falls

employ sonification as a means of data communication, the concept is relevant to the discussion

of Polli’s process and aesthetic choices because she is working to capture the nuances of the data

as well as cultivate an emotional response from the viewer, albeit now with visual means. Polli

discusses the experience of nature in spiritual terms, inseparable from her scientific knowledge

of atmospheric phenomena. Polli’s experience of the data is intimate and is directly linked to

both science and technology: “In terms of my relationship to climate, again knowing more about

how the chemical composition of air can have such a serious effect on climate has made me

much more sensitive to my personal footprint” (Knebusch, 2008). Though the focus of her work

is ecological, Polli notes that the concept of ‘sustainability’ may be contradictory to

technologically driven artwork in two distinct ways. First, electronic media is directly dependent

on the grid, and second, the substrate technology is manufactured in ways that are decidedly not

green.

Polli conveys her close connection to the atmosphere and makes the effects of

anthropogenic climate change obvious through her work. In the following sections I discuss two

relevant EV works that exemplify her sensitivity to air quality and her drive to make knowledge

publically accessible, approachable, and understandable. Both Cloud Car and Particle Falls

visualize atmospheric conditions in order to evoke an emotional response from the audience.

They show two very different approaches to EV through data interpretation and visualization,

from Cloud Car that interprets a static dataset with an interactive, three-dimensional form to

Particle Falls that interprets a dynamic dataset as a projection via technical and digital means.

Cloud Car

Polli’s Cloud Car is a site-specific EV installation, creating a space of contemplation and

exchange by showing the connection between the automobile, life and air quality. Cloud Car

looks like a broken-down car by the side of the road spewing malodorous smoke. The sculpture

is a metaphor for vehicular and oil dependence, emblematic of the time we spend passively

polluting inside cars, while being less aware of what is going on outside of them. Polli subverts

the power of the automobile by using it as a powerful symbol for the practices of entrenched,

routine environmental degradation. The global political economy of the car is reinforced through

its production, its role in capital accumulation, and its promotion over other transportation

alternatives.67 Cars contribute to the consumption of fossil fuels, social isolation and

disconnection connected with urban sprawl, health degradation, air and noise pollution, and rapid

urban decay.

Cloud Car is an ongoing project since 2008, most notably in New York City; Turin, Italy;

and Belfast, Ireland.68 It was first installed in New York, debuting with a Ford Taurus Wagon, a

fitting vehicle for the US (Figure 3). Cloud Car is a smart project - versions of the work in other

countries appropriate their common vehicles. For example, in Turin, Italy, Polli chose the Fiat

67 Through an analysis of the global political economy of the car, research shows that widespread social

practices which systematically produce global environmental change are simultaneously embedded in the

reproduction of global power structures. Hegemonic structures create environmental crisis (Paterson, 2002).

68 Polli exhibited Cloud Car at the New York Hall of Science in conjunction with the “Ear to the Earth

Festival” in October 2008. Cloud Car was developed in residence at Eyebeam Art + Technology Center and

supported by the New York Hall of Science (Eyebeam, 2008).

Cloud Car was exhibited in Polli’s solo show, “Breathless,” in Turin, Italy in 2011 (PAV, 2011).

The installation was also exhibited for the ISEA Symposium in Belfast, Ireland in 2009 (ISEA, 2009).

126, a car widely used throughout the country (Figure 4). The car is fitted with a variety of

equipment in order to produce a cloud of mist to envelope car and rider, making air tangible and

visible. The equipment is evident: hoses wrapping the hood, roof, and around the car; pressure

valves rated to 1000 psi; atomizer nozzles to make a fine mist; two high-pressure pumps located

off the vehicle; smoke machines, motion sensors; lighting spotlights and a timer relay (Figure 5).

The car is engineered to be human-scaled spectacle, day and night. During the day the car spews

clouds of vapor, which envelope spectators in condensed theatrical emissions exhaust. At night,

text is projected into the mist. Reading “the future,” “no water,” “plenty of CO2,” and “no fuel,”

the car extends its local reach and message (Figure 6 and 7). Ambient data from a pre-

preprocessed data source is a hallmark of Polli’s work, communicating a familiar (even if

undesirable) narrative and collective shared experience. The art critic Maya Kóvskaya articulates

how Polli’s ambient data is so powerful:

This simple but effective move is to elide the difference between the viewer and

the faceless statistical victim of air pollution, and to collapse the boundary

between them, which is the very boundary that allows people to treat such

problems as outside of themselves and thus “not my problem” (2010).

Didactic in nature, Cloud Car invites visitors to ponder their own car’s carbon footprint and

interpret the abstraction as they are engulfed in mist. Polli’s work translates data into dynamic

and accessible form, connecting people immediately and intimately to their environment and

helping them to understand their impact upon it.

Cloud Car does not function as a visualization of numerical, tabulated data, as a straight

visualization, or a direct mapping because there isn’t a clear way to discern a specific data set

within the generated haze. However, Cloud Car is made to convey an idea, stimulate other

sensory responses from the viewer, and critique our culture of consumption. Accompanying

Cloud Car was a fact sheet to further understanding of the project and help the audience make

intellectual connections. Polli stated:

One thing I thought was effective about [the car] was that people would come up

to the car and we would hand them a fact sheet that would say, ‘If you have to

drive, here are some things you can do that will reduce your emissions.’ The point

of these projects is ultimately to raise awareness and understanding of the issue. If

we just tried to hand people that information without having some kind of fun

spectacle to perk their interest, they might reject it or feel insulted by it or just not

want to look at it or read it (Yoerger, 2013).

Cloud Car as an EV is a viscerally relatable materialization of an everyday occurrence that is

mundane enough to render itself invisible. The EV functions as a critique of culture, reiterating a

form emblematic of industrial production in order to critique said form. Cloud Car is engaging

because it represents a familiar phenomenon, stimulating critical reflection through discussion.

Using the familiar forms of popular vehicles and atomized mist, Polli abstracts the data in order

to depict a variety of tangible concepts - air pollution, smog, and vehicle emissions - in ways that

are ultimately approachable and relatable for a wide audience. An actual data set is unnecessary

for comprehension of the issue. One does not need to go far to find exhaustive smog data or

understand how cars are a major contributor to tropospheric ozone.69

69 The Environmental Protection Agency provides different types of air quality data through numerous

systems. These data can be separated into two categories.

Air quality data includes the amount of pollution and other substances present in the atmosphere. These

data are measured by monitors throughout the nation.

Emissions data includes the amount of pollutants and other substances being emitted from facilities,

vehicles, and other activities that release pollution into the atmosphere (EPA, 2014).

Particle Falls

Particle Falls is a large-scale, technically sophisticated, real-time dynamic data EV work

that visualizes local air-quality data in the form of a projected waterfall (Figure 8).70 Like Cloud

Car, Particle Falls has exhibited in a number of venues since first debuting in San Jose,

California, as part of the 2010 ZERO1 Biennial.71 Notably, in 2014, Particle Falls was featured

in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvia as part of the “Breathe Project;” in Detroit, Michigan for the

“Dlectricity” exhibition; and at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, as part of ARTsySTEM.72

A site-specific EV, the work consists of a projection upon a tall building’s wall. A background of

blue LED light is animated to appear as if it was a waterfall. This light constantly “falls,”

providing a background for a visible disruption in what could be an unspoiled “waterway” –

spots of bright, fiery color that emerge and crackle depending on the amount of sensed PM

pollution. A nearby air monitor detects the presence of fine particulate matter, and as the air

clears, fewer bright spots appear over the falls. Polli works to make what is invisible – PM

pollution – into something visible, and to encourage awareness about air pollution: “As an artist,

70 Particle Falls was a collaborative project with partners working in multiple disciplines. Collaborators

include meteorologist Tim Dye, artist Chuck Varga, student Ryan Romero and others in The Social Media

Workgroup. MetOne instruments provided particulate monitoring equipment and calibration. Eric Geusz and Jared

Rendon-Trompak donated programming and other technical assistance (Polli, 2011).

71 Particle Falls was one of five commissioned works supported by the San Jose, California Art and

Technology Network. Conceptually driven by the idea to “Build Your Own World,” each work looked to the future;

one that isn’t just about what is next, but one that is about creating a foundation to ensure that what is next matters

(Zero1, 2011).

72 The Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania installation was at the Benedum Center façade in the 700 block of Penn

Avenue as part of the “Breathe Project,” a coalition of residents, businesses, and government that are working

together to clean up the air (Breathe Project, 2014).

The Detroit, Michigan installation of Particle Falls was part of Dlectricity, an annual exhibition of sound

and light (Dlectricity, 2014).

THE INSTALLATION AT UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY IN LOGAN, UTAH WAS PART OF

ARTsySTEM, an interdisciplinary project aimed at incorporating art and design methodologies toward scientific

data collection, analysis, interpretation and design (USU, 2014).

I felt the best way to promote this dialogue was to take…something negative and present it as a

thing of beauty” (Diana, 2013). Particle Falls visualizes microscopic particles as they are

exhausted nearby and whatever amount has accumulated in localized wind currents. Visible

smog that plagued urban centers in decades past has been mitigated, but these tiny, invisible

particulates go unnoticed without detection.

An instrument called a nephelometer monitors and samples the local air to generate the

data for Particle Falls (Figure 9).73 The nephelometer used in this EV combines two different

technological methods, including light scattering and gravimetric filtering. Light scattering

operates by pulsing a beam of light through a sample of air. The particulates in the air scatter the

beam of light, which is collected and concentrated onto a photo diode in the E-Sampler. That

light is then converted into an electric signal, which is proportional to the concentration of

particulates in the air. That electric signal is converted to usable data and sent to the projector via

a computer software program, which displays concentrations of particulates in bursts of bright

color. Increasing frequency of the crackling dots of color indicates a greater concentration of

particles. Particle Falls updates with new particulate data every 15 seconds. Also used in

scientific analysis is the E-Sampler’s gravimetric filter system. After measurement via light

scatter the sample is drawn onto a filter. The filter can be taken for lab analysis as a second

73 A nephelometer is an instrument for measuring concentration of suspended particulates in

a liquid or gas colloid. A nephelometer measures suspended particulates by employing a light beam (source beam)

and a light detector set to one side (often 90°) of the source beam. Particle density is then a function of the

light reflected into the detector from the particles. Nephelometers are calibrated to a known particulate and use

environmental factors (k-factors) to compensate lighter or darker colored dusts accordingly.

A recent study in northern China researched the optical properties of anthropogenic PM, which showed

dominant contribution during the sampling period, accompanied by occasional dust events. Moreover, the major

contributors to aerosol optical properties are attributed to the mixture of black carbon (BC) and brown carbon (BrC)

(Zhu et. al., 2015).

method of measurement of air particles.74 The Particle Falls nephelometer measures particles in

the gas sample that are smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

At the heart of Particle Falls’ operation is a computer program. This custom program

was designed to convert the nephelometer readings into patterns of light. Meaning was assigned

by color: blue signaled clean air, and yellow signaled polluted air. The installation visualized the

differences in air quality by disrupting the peaceful blue imagery of the waterfall. When the air is

extremely polluted, Particle Falls resembles a fireball as the number of bursts increases and ebbs

in proportion to the shifts in particulate matter floating in the surrounding air (Figure 10).

Because of the proximity of the nephelometer to the street, an idling bus increases the frequency

of the visual disruption. Various types of vehicles triggered the EV, giving the audience an

immediate visual understanding of the real differences between clean burning emissions and

heavy polluters. Audience members could also trigger a response from Particle Falls if they

smoked near the sensor. Polli noted that they “were able to see…how much more particulate is

created by diesel vehicles and idling” (Meier, 2015). The distinct differences vehicle emissions

as visualized by Particle Falls were an opportunity for the audience to consider the ways in

which we contribute to pollution. Particle Falls supports an immediate understanding of

atmospheric conditions through real-time, dynamic visualization. The EV is a tool for learning

about air quality by connecting behavior to the material impacts of consumption, encouraging

playful engagement and exploration with energy, facilitating discussion, and critical reflection on

the state of the air.

74 For the Pittsburgh installation of Particle Falls, scientists obtained the data from the nephelometer for

further study at The Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania.

Nathalie Miebach: Taking the Long View with The Sandy Rides

The signs of climate change are obvious, experienced everywhere: global spikes in

temperature are marked by increasingly powerful storms that bring tidal surges, violent

precipitation, devastating floods, widespread drought, calamitous winds, and deadly heat waves.

Recent US events include a prolonged drought in California; super cell storms in Texas raining

softball-sized hailstones, disastrous flash flooding in Kentucky; and record temperature

fluctuations across the continental US (Figure 11). Powerful typhoons Nangka and Chan-Hom

forced 1.5 million to evacuate in Japan and China; extended heat waves are brutalizing India and

Pakistan; unprecedented floods swept through Chile’s Atacama desert; and in March, four

simultaneous tropical cyclones surged in the southern hemisphere.75 These episodes are part of a

new normal for weather, a pattern of extremes across the globe, shaped in part by human-

induced climate change. Weather is what we immediately encounter, what is going on outside

right now: at the time of writing this there were violent thunderstorms. Climate is the pattern of

that weather, measured and recorded over decades. Understanding the nuances of these changing

patterns requires sifting through masses of information over time in order to analyze the data of

individual storms.76 However normalized, storms and their aftermath remain enigmatic and

complex phenomena, a disturbed state of an environment and atmosphere. Storm, originating

from the Proto-Germanic sturmaz, means “noise, tumult, and disturbance.”

75 The occurrence of four simultaneous cyclones has only happened twice before, in 1998 and 1893. For an

understanding of the weather patterns that lead to cyclones, see Erdman, 2015.

76 Weather events are becoming more extreme because they are developing in a different climate. For an

overview of global changing weather patterns, see: Cutting et. al., 2015.

Extreme weather is a product of climate change, with mega-storms becoming more common, the new

normal (Carrey, 2011).

As storms increase in intensity, floods are more common. Tornados are more frequent and intense (UCS,

2011).

The complexity of the “noise” is formed from layers of data, which is comprised of air

temperature variations, wind direction shifts and difference in speed, precipitation levels, tides

and currents, humidity, marine temperature, atmospheric pressure, dates and duration of the

event. The density of this weather data and related information is the material of choice for artist

Nathalie Miebach, who filters the “noise” visually. Miebach also draws upon other data,

including location and geologic formations, moon cycles, historic and geologic temporal

comparisons, the habits of biological organisms, and her own personal accounts and experience

of the event, the latter often not considered data as it is experiential and not numerical. By

drawing upon personal experience, Miebach challenges what is considered data. The data sets

can be characterized as static; all data used to create the sculptures have been pre-recorded.

Miebach’s hybrid creative practice borrows from the methodologies of both art and science to

visualize complexity, and is not an objective indicator of data. A featured TED Global Fellow in

2011 for information visualization, Miebach is considered a preeminent EV practitioner and is at

the forefront of the data visualization conversation, specifically regarding meaning-making using

data. Her CV is extensive: since 1995 she has received a number of high-profile accolades,

notably a residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown in 2007 - 2008. During this

time Miebach first made her weather-recording device and began logging daily data, which she

then translated into sculpture. This process laid the foundation for her future work. She continues

to exhibit globally and is a prolific maker, and she has recently begun to collaborate with

musicians and composers.

The daily practice of scientific data collection is an important aspect of Miebach’s

creative practice and a testament to her patience. Though the data collection can take months for

one sculpture, Miebach says, “In order to truly understand weather, you have to understand the

environment as well. And an environment is not an app; it will not reveal itself to you quickly”

(Lovelace, 2014). Miebach records a given environment with sensitivity to context and details,

be it specific storm or an area like the gulf of Maine. She builds data collecting devices to record

numerical data, chronicles personal observations beyond the numerical, and appropriates

information from weather stations and buoys. She compares her findings to historical databases

and records. Using this wide variety of data, she translates her findings into whimsical structural

accounts of the event that are chaotic, complex and rich. Miebach’s work is artistic, sculptural

EV, employing a three-dimensional mode of representation.

Rejecting traditional and ubiquitous (normative) information-mapping methods like

graphs and diagrams, which are limited means of data expression, Miebach uses an aesthetic

three-dimensional language of form, object and sculpture as an entry point into data analysis and

meaning making using numerical information. The sculptures are one way that Miebach

emotionally connects to our evolving environment, one possible way to continue the discussion

regarding climate change. Miebach describes her work as “a narrative approach to the climate

crisis, to appreciate how super-storms are connected to the social fabric, to economic reality, to

jobs. We’re not going to get it with one more graph. We need metaphors, storytelling” (Miebach

quoted in Harwood, 2015). These sculptures are a way to understand the disorganized

complexity of storms and related weather events. Here science and art converge for a multi-

dimensional comprehension of our world through Miebach’s individual subjective experience. It

is as if each sculpture is an entreaty for an understanding of the universe, each woven reed a way

to solve global warming, each plotted object a way to question the relationships inherent to the

data.

Originally both inspired by astronomical spaces and frustrated by her inability to

conceive of their dimensional configuration, she turned to basket weaving as a way to reconcile

representation with her own cognitive experience of the data set. Miebach regards the structural

possibilities of the basket as a contemporary tool for visualization, a form that can be

manipulated to represent any map, matrix, or web. Revealed within this unusual process of

transformation are the ways in which Miebach processes information, constructs understanding,

reveals connections, and makes meaning with materials and tactile experience. Structures both

organic and manufactured are organizational devices for the plotting of data, which is mapped

intrinsically and extrinsically in her forms.

Elements from the data drive the substructure, a three-dimensional grid held together by

the tension of the weave. Embedded in the weave is a time matrix, a data scaffolding that is a

timeline, often a 24 hour period that distorts and shapes the structure. Though guided by her

hand, the reed material bends with tension, curves that are transliterated numerical information.

Miebach intentionally allows the material to drive the underlying form of the sculpture. The

physical form emerges through this system, upon which she layers more data. Familiar structures

are incorporated upon the surface as if points on a chart, a symbolic annotation for definitive

information. Though the data is plotted in a slow and logical way, Miebach works to engulf the

audience in the density of the environment she studies, surrounding them in the complexity of

the biological, chemical, and physical interaction of the science data. The sculptures are a slow

reveal, allowing telling clues for weather events. At times, Miebach works in opposition to a

monosemic system of signs; however, viewers can decode each individual work by consulting an

accompanying legend (if provided). Decoding is unnecessary, because the sculptural forms are

compelling without the need for data interpretation.

A core concern of her work is to challenge the conditioned and accepted visual

vocabulary of science by expanding the traditional parameters of data visualization. Miebach

subverts the restrictive boundaries of the scientific discipline by allowing her choices to be

informed by the context of play. Play is employed both as a mode of creation and a way of

engaging content. The sculptures can be encountered without a specific, predetermined outcome

and are open to interpretation. Fun on the first encounter, the use of colorful, recognizable toys

as plotting elements belie their seriousness, accuracy, and numerical logic. Acting as a physical

lure from the perspective of play and drawing in the viewer, Miebach’s EV work conveys a

sense of peril regarding our immediate environment, and critiques our choices regarding our

land-use. Miebach’s work shifts the boundaries of scientific acceptability to enter into the

emotional distress and tumult of storms.

The Sandy Rides

In October 2012, Hurricane Sandy, a late-season post-tropical cyclone, damaged

hundreds of thousands of homes, forced tens of thousands of survivors into shelters and caused

billions of dollars in damage to vital infrastructure systems including power transmission,

transportation and water and sewage treatment facilities.77 The storm shut down the east coast of

the US. Hurricane Sandy was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record, with winds spanning a

diameter of 1,100 miles (Figure 12). The super-storm moved up from its first landfall in the

Caribbean all the way to Canada (Figure 13). Sandy's strength and angle of approach combined

to produce a record storm surge of water into New York City. The surge level at Battery Park

77 Hurricane Sandy came ashore in northern New Jersey Oct. 29, 2012, and as the powerful storm made its

way along the East Coast it brought damage to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Va. For a

comprehensive analysis of Hurricane Sandy, see: NASA, 2013.

topped 13.88 feet at 9:24 p.m. Monday, surpassing the 10.02 feet record water level set by

Hurricane Donna in 1960. New York Harbor's surf also reached a record level when a buoy

measured a 32.5-foot wave. That wave was 6.5 feet taller than a 25-foot wave churned up by

Hurricane Irene in 2011. A major contributor to Hurricane Sandy’s strength was abnormally

warm sea surface temperatures off the East Coast of the United States—more than 3 °C (5 °F)

above normal, to which global warming had contributed 0.6 °C (1 °F). As the temperature of the

atmosphere increases, the capacity to hold water increases, leading to stronger storms and higher

rainfall amounts. Hurricane Sandy was the basis of all the data for Miebach’s recent series of

sculptures, The Sandy Rides.

For Miebach, the most disturbing images were of the ruined amusement park in Seaside

Heights, New Jersey. She was further shocked to hear that planners were going to rebuild the

park, adding a ride named “Sandy” that would mimic the experience of a hurricane (SAIA,

2013). Gone were rollercoasters and a ferris wheel, structures that served no other purpose but to

delight and distract. The Star Jet roller coaster was washed away from its pier mooring and

submerged offshore (Figure 14). The eerie, desolate and wrecked area of the Coney Island

amusement rides were ominous and emblematic images of our own inability to confront evolving

environmental conditions. The images were distressing not only because the park was destroyed,

but also because there were plans to rebuild. Meibach saw the folly of rebuilding on exposed

coastal property as an absurd disavowal of climate change, continuing the cycle of destruction as

if Hurricane Sandy was the exception. Miebach’s personal experience and emotion informed the

data collection from the storm, gathered from weather databases and ocean buoys. She added

further layers of meaning theater sets as resource and a narrative filter, and employing these

different entities to tell stories.

There are nine sculptures comprising the series, The Sandy Rides. Though each is a

distinct object, they share a common data set from Hurricane Sandy. The series features repeated

motifs, including amusement park rides, carnival text, and overt references to water as a

destructive element. Rather than discuss the whole series, I have chosen to discuss two of the

sculptures, The Last Ride and O Fortuna, Sandy Spins, in detail. The former is one of the earliest

in the series, and is visually minimal without an overt reference to water in its base structure; and

the latter is more complex structurally, with a moving, double sided element. I also introduce a

third work (The Ride) as it exemplifies a future direction for Miebach’s work.

O Fortuna, Sandy Spins

Hurricane Sandy took a spin on two different amusement rides, and in the process

destroyed them both. A metaphor for what is uncontrollable, O Fortuna, Sandy Spins (2013) is a

narrative visualization of collected weather data from October 29, 2012, on Coney Island and

Seaside Heights.78 The discrete pedestal sculpture measures 21” x 16” x 14” (Figure 15).

Reminiscent of an architectural toy, the forms imply movement as a Ferris wheel precariously

balances upon a winding, rickety rollercoaster. It reads like a slapdash contraption, unmoored

from land and floating on a bamboo raft. Below the raft, blue rope is coiled like the churning of

the ocean surface, separating the object from the grounding pedestal. Bound around the base at

regular intervals are orange life rings, as if they would support the rickety structure through

stormy seas and thwart its inevitable demise. Throughout the sculpture, Miebach’s handwritten

notations are evident, indicating moments of interest and zones of large change. Placed upon the

front face is the glittering text “Wheel of Fortune.”

78 Miebach identifies her choices and object associations in a short video posted by the Crystal Bridges

Museum, 2014.

Who is at the helm, driving us to the future and determining our fate? Ancient humans

concluded that this someone must be a woman – Fate, or Fortuna – and if anything, she is

impulsive, possibly diabolical, and occasionally benevolent. We are at the mercy of the arbitrary

spins of her wheel. Though the concept of the wheel of fortune has evolved over time to become

a religious symbol, it was used to teach against the appeals of the temporal, warning against

hoping for an earthly fortune but instead putting all hope in Heaven. Here, we are putting hope in

Nature, and it is proving not to be a benevolent force.

From the surface of the raft, reeds wind upward in a twisted spin, ascending the climb of

the coaster upon a vertical frame, tracing the development of the hurricane as it made contact.

Plotted in regular intervals along the tracks are hourly markings (marked with beads). A single

yellow strand follows the same path, marking the movements of the sunrise during that fateful

day. Another strand denotes the sunset. Overlaid upon this structure are related data, including

extreme tidal movements (marked as black verticals, they are placed within the structure) and

various other statistics – some denoted, some not – so much that it transforms into a cacophony

of overlaid marks, lashed bamboo, and upward movement. Human-imposed crafts comically

project outward as speared carnival rides, formed as woven blue paper vessels circling the

central system. Their overlarge rotors imply the destructive force of cavitation.

As the storm’s momentum grows, we move upward to the Ferris wheel, which doubles as

a face of a clock. Time is labeled on black watch faces, following the same logic as an analog

timepiece. Reeds radiate from the center point, tinted green and sharpened to impale wayward

dinghies. It ticks away the minutes of the storm, measuring wind speed (dark blue blocks), wind

gust (light blue blocks) and barometric pressure (green flags). On the reverse face is a dynamic,

articulated wheel of fortune operating as a proxy for our gaming addiction, our ongoing gamble

with the weather. We could play roulette with our relaxed lifestyle and expensive communities

of leisure while asking the question, “If the weather is to change, how do we negotiate living by

the ocean?”

The Last Ride

In a similar vein to O Fortuna, Sandy Spins, The Last Ride (2012) offers a glimpse into

the post-apocalyptic landscape experience left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. The Last Ride is

a pedestal sculpture, measuring 38” x 31” x 26,” using reed, wood, and paper to visualize

weather and ocean data from October 29 -30, 2012 (Figure 16). The sculpture is precariously

supported upon horizontal azure floating rings that are imbued with a double life: first, as planted

feet (on land) and second, as buoyant rafts (on water). A curved ribbon of blue woven reed

mimics the flow of ocean currents, creating the supportive sub-structure for the vertical poles.

However, the mere threat of a riptide will displace the flimsy skeletal formation since The Last

Ride appears to already be folding in upon itself in a denial of its unsound geometry. Red cross

beams fail to intersect, vertical towers impossibly list, and broken tracks abruptly end, a

metaphor for falling off the end of the earth. The Last Ride is a surrogate doom for the fantasy of

living on the ocean’s edge.

Rollercoasters are meant to create an illusion of danger, prompting a swift rush of fear

and adrenaline, all manipulated through architecture. The underlying principle of all roller

coasters is the law of conservation of energy, which describes how energy can neither be lost nor

created; energy is only transferred from one form to another. However, Miebach’s sculpture is a

physics nightmare, an engineering specter, calling forth the first wooden rollercoasters. The

implied energy has been ripped from it during the storm. Lashed atop the precipitous towers is a

double line, replicating the winding path of the flowing ocean current. This path is strong,

defining the upper edge of the sculpture while doubling as a freeform coaster to nowhere.

However, this is not the route of the coaster but that of the sunrise and sunset, plotted hourly

starting at 8 am on the 29th and going to 2 am on the 30th. A secondary trajectory, running

through the center, is further complicated with steep rises and subsequent falls, a denotation of

the fluctuating temperature during the storm. Included in this sculpture are wave height, wind

speed, wind gust, and cloud cover. The mass of linear posts, diagonal lashings, beaded endpoints,

handwritten marks, and proliferation of color all work to mask the underlying data, the logic of it

all. Decoding the specifics of the data is impossible and unnecessary.

Red flags wave above the coaster, marking the tallest points of the sculpture. Just below

are a series of TinkerToy wooden spools, their connections creating complex curvilinear forms

that replicate the energy of wind currents and speed during the course of the storm. Spokes

radiate from the center of the spools and are dripping delicate white flags reminiscent of dripping

water and the formation of icicles. Some convey direction, relating back to the movement of the

flags. In a narrative move, Miebach includes a sectional woven paper dragon that hovers just

above the uppermost track as if taking a turn on The Last Ride.

Dragons are a recurring motif throughout Miebach’s work. Dragons have long been

revered in mythology, representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe.

They are believed to possess some form of supernatural power (for instance, flying), and are

associated with water. Miebach structured this narrative around the final ride for the Star Jet

Rollercoaster. In The Last Ride, the dragon is a metaphor for the powerful, destructive nature of

Hurricane Sandy, a sea serpent taking a last spin on the rollercoaster before leaving the ride’s

broken corpse in a watery grave. Visually, the dragon is the only part of the visualization shifting

from the linear line quality of the whole composition – the creature’s mass is oppressive. Though

the dragon appears to be floating above the architecture it seems to weigh the structure down.

Staying true to the aesthetic of play, the dragon resembles a popular children’s toy called

the Chinese Finger Trap. By including a form representative of a situation that could be

overcome by accepting circumstances rather than fighting against them, Miebach suggests that

we could change our behavior. The behavior shift is complicated by our relationship of desire to

live in fascination with coastal landscapes, our disavowal of climate change, and our wager that

things will stay the same. The Last Ride allows for the projection of the self into the sculpture to

take a wild ride on this engineering nightmare, and for a glimpse into how our architecture will

continue to be crushed under the pressure of weather.

The Ride

The Ride (2015) employs a different process from the others sculptures in The Sandy

Rides. Though based on the same weather data from Hurricane Sandy, The Ride is both a

sculpture and a sound composition, a duo for percussion and cello. Unlike the other sculptures

from The Sandy Rides, developed directly from collected weather data, Miebach constructed the

underlying form for this work from a score written by Christian Gentry. The two artists were

paired for the 2015 Cambridge Science Festival to create a new composition inspired by

ecological art, which would be performed by the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble on April 26,

2015, a group committed to presenting contemporary chamber music. Unlike Miebach’s

previous work, which was based directly on weather data, the sculpture, The Ride was based on

Gentry’s original score, Ride_.

Gentry is a composer and an Assistant Professor of Music at Framingham State

University. He developed Ride_ by collecting primary source material from amusement parks

directly, as they have unique sound-worlds created by the orbits of carousels and roller coasters.

Tapping into an investigation into the theater of the absurd, Gentry was informed by a space in

which manmade entertainment and diversion met tragedy and destruction. Gentry describes the

Ride_ composition:

The end result is an oddly proportioned, oddly sparse at times, mixed with some

moments of more dense counterpoint. Yet, overall, it is the most “direct” music I

think I have written. There is little time for development, only statements that

essentialize my intuitive impulses (Gentry, 2015).

Ride_ is organized into three sections: i. Flight “freely, lifting off, with breathing room;” ii. Wait

“Dirge, slow, breath-like, still;” (Fall “fast, nimble”); and iii. Deluge “steady pulse, mechanical.”

Miebach responded to his score in turn by creating The Ride, a discrete pedestal sculpture

measuring 32” x 22” x 22” (Figure 17). Guided by the sound composition, the work is made

from fiber rush, paper, yarn, wood, and foam. Both the destroyed Jet Star Rollercoaster at

Seaside Heights and Jane’s Carousel in Brooklyn were theatrical source material. Included in the

imagery is an unnerving image of the tall ship, Bounty, sinking towards her watery grave in the

wake of the Hurricane (Figure 18).79 The sculpture begins at the base with blue rope, curved and

looped to resemble the ocean’s choppy surface. Suspended in the water is a small black rowboat,

a tiny island sure to sink. The boat is precariously balancing a complex anatomy that includes a

tall mast ship frozen in a moment of failure, jutting out sideways; a miniature, simplified Ferris

wheel, repurposed as a waterwheel; part of a roller coaster in an inverted twist that ends midair;

and a skeletal, horseless carousel caught in mid-spin. Above it all flies a grey, simplified dragon.

This discrete sculpture is reflexive: rather than going directly to the numerical data,

Miebach filters her work through Gentry’s opus, and then looks to data, which is plotted upon

79 Fourteen people were rescued from he Bounty, but the captain and one of the crew perished with the

ship. For an in-depth report as to why the leaking craft was out in the first place, see: Miles, 2013.

the score’s framework. This is a divergent approach from her previous work, as heard80 with the

score “Navigating into a New Night” (2009, ink, data on notation paper, 10 pages, 8.5 x 11 in)

and its accompanying sculpture, Musical Buoy in Search Towards a New Shore (2009, wood,

data, reed, 32 x 32 x 32 in) (Figure 19). With “Navigating Into a New Night,” Miebach wrote the

score directly from weather data as a blueprint for Musical Buoy in Search Towards a New

Shore. Curving blue lines indicate cloud cover, wind direction is noted by teal marks, and other

weather variables including humidity, temperature, and barometric pressure are indicated by the

colors orange, red, and green. Finally, tempo is represented by pink shading, open for

interpretation by musicians.81 Musical notation became another way to artistically represent

weather data. Miebach is quick to point out that she is not a trained musician, and acknowledges

that human comprehension of an event can be enhanced with sound. Numerical data was not

capturing everything that was physically experienced – the data was missing emotional nuances.

In order to express the fullness of the moment and the human perception of weather, she began

translating musical data into numerical scores that have a double use as weather almanacs and

plans for sculptural objects, functioning as a sort of sculptural shorthand.

Miebach applies the same logic to the musical score as the sculptures – the data and its

interrelationships are revealed sonically, without being manipulated to arrive at a particular

80 Elaine Rombola plays “Navigating Into a New Night,” see: Rombola, 2010.

Rombola articulates her experience and understanding of Miebach’s musical scores:

These scores contain an immense amount of information, more even, in a way, than a standard

score made by a trained composer. Coming to them as a pianist with experience with graphic

notation of the type pioneered by John Cage and other experimental composers, I felt very

comfortable interacting with them and finding ways to turn them into fully realized performances.

Nathalie communicates her personal experiences during the period when the data is collected,

creating the opportunity for exploring the cyclical relationship between one's life and mood and

the weather. Her openness to the musician's free exploration of the material presented in the scores

makes it possible for every performance of the score to be totally different, depending on the

musician's personal approach to it (Ibid, 2010).

81 Marina Koren offers insight into Miebach’s process as pertaining to sound and sculpture (Koren, 2013).

sound. Musicians have some freedom of interpretation, but are asked to preserve what is

essential, ensuring an artistic sonification of meteorological data. By entering into the sculptural

process by way of a musical score, Miebach is working to convey a nuanced emotionality that

she is concerned was previously absent. She believes that musicians might be able to reveal new,

unseen patterns in the data and bring a heightened sensitivity to the process. The translated

weather scores are constructed with only a small fraction of storm data: a total of three variables,

including temperature, wind, and barometric pressure. The extremes of the data – high values

from the wind and low values from barometric pressure – can demand an eight-octave range.

Few instruments command such a range, so Miebach suggests that musicians can interpret the

score without altering core information. What emerges from this is an understanding of

Miebach’s past adherence to a “straight” data read, a sort of inflexible control on a specific way

of interpreting data.

This process is upended with The Ride, which is a new direction for Miebach’s work,

because she did not write the score. Inherently reflexive and employing Gentry’s narrative

interpretation of amusement parks as the substrate, The Ride is yet another methodology for

Miebach. Some familiar elements remain: weather data is plotted upon the surface and

overlaying itself, theatrical narrative devices like amusement park architecture continue to defy

gravity, and the visualized arc of the hurricane / dragon persevere. It, too, is a call to reevaluate

our position on the edge of the water.

The series The Sandy Rides demonstrates Miebach’s chronicling and data visualizing

impulse, not as an objective record of every event, but as a thoughtful and studied approach to

revealing the complexities of human existence. The series also calls to mind an idea of the

fluidity of data – how new understanding can emerge through the visualization and sonification

of information. The Sandy Rides bring to mind the dilapidated, structurally unsound carnivals,

the memories of children shouting, and the hot, sticky cotton-candy days of summer. They could

easily be interpreted as an escapist journey to the coast, a colorful, playful, fun-filled experience.

However, I see contradictory forces and something much darker and ominous, even though

Miebach’s material language is governed by the concept of play and children’s toys. I see fear,

exacted by how our collective behavior, and hopelessness and despair in the sensitive

translations of weather data, of wrecked communities, of changed lives. Miebach’s obsession

with the storm is evident as she re-explores the data and imagery in multiple compact sculptures,

almost overwrought and chaotic with information. They are ruined architecture, left in the wake

of a super-storm, characteristic of what is the new normal for evolving weather patterns. The

Sandy Rides are a call to change our habits and reevaluate our disavowal of climate change.

Natalie Jeremijenko: xDesign for the Future

The most memorable, striking aspects of Hurricane Sandy were the ephemeral effects of

the high winds, pelting rain, and devastating waves that displaced thousands after they tore

through cities and coastal communities. But Sandy also revealed a key vulnerability within our

critical infrastructure as several wastewater treatment plants were knocked offline in New Jersey.

Raw and partially treated sewage that carried high levels of bacteria, viruses, and pollutants

flowed into rivers, bays, canals, city streets, and were thus inflicted upon the delicate biology of

the coast.82 Satellites tracked the path of fouled water as it spilled out of rivers (Figure 20). The

82 An interactive graphic, “11 Billion Gallons of Sandy Sewage Overflow,” clearly communicates the type

of overflow, the cause, and state totals caused by the hurricane. 11 billion gallons is equal to New York’s Central

Park stacked 41 feet high with sewage, or more than 50 times the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The vast majority

of that sewage flowed into the waters of New York City and northern New Jersey in the days and weeks during and

after the storm. See: Kenward et. al., 2013.

pollution appeared as a murky, tan color as it flowed toward the Atlantic Ocean, contrasting with

clean, blue ocean water. 94 percent of the spilled sewage, over 10 billion gallons, was the result

of some form of damage caused by coastal flooding. Cleanup is ongoing, prompting new ways of

thinking about urban biodiversity and alternative, long-term methods of resource management.

One such method of resource management is using bivalve mollusks to clean the

waterways. Mussels were once a natural part of temperate marine and estuarine ecosystems but

have largely disappeared because of threats including channelization, impoundment, pollution,

and invasive species that have lead to global decline and, in some cases, extinction. For example,

the Dwarf wedgemussel (Alasmidonta heterodon) is federally endangered, and New York State

lists a total of seven species of mussels as endangered.83 Using bivalves like mussels to clean

waterways has been a consideration of conservationists and scientists for decades. Scientists are

increasingly exploring mussel colonies as potential water filterers, because they quickly and

densely grow in three dimensions on large, floating rafts. They can also withstand weather events

and a range of toxins (though they may no longer be edible).84 These exciting human and non-

human collaborations for habitat restoration are brought to public awareness with Natalie

Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir.

Jeremijenko is a cultural producer who questions everything, one who works at the edge

of multiple disciplinary practices that include engineering, bioengineering, neuroscience, design,

83 Pollution has become an increasingly prevalent problem for all freshwater organisms across North

America. Point source pollution includes that from industrial effluent pipes, wastewater release, and chemical spills.

Non-point source pollution includes sediment accumulation, nutrient overloading, acid precipitation, and heavy

metal increases. Mussel response to these pollutants varies. Responses to toxicants can include a decrease in

metabolism and respiration, tissue deterioration, reduction in growth rate, and death (AMNH, 2015).

84 Paul Greenberg discusses how scientists evaluate mussel function, resiliency, and living conditions, a

choice bivalve for cleaning waterways (Greenberg, 2013).

and art, claiming all as important. She resists being categorized as an artist; however, she

acknowledges that there are advantages to playing that role:

Particularly in a techno-scientific context, no one trusts an artist, no one believes

an artist. Artists have no authority, artists don’t get paid. So when it comes to

complicated technical, political, social or environmental issues, the artist then

stands in for the everyman. Not having to set expectations about expertise I think

is the greatest advantage of saying “artist” (Substratum, 2011).

Jeremijenko coined the term xDesign to symbolize her practice. “X” is a charged term: it can be

a marker, as in “X” marks the spot; it is equated with extreme sports or an ex-partner; and it is

also a variable. xDesign is part of a disruptive model of exploring how technology can provide

the opportunity for social, technical and environmental change. She is an optimist, creating

places of hopeful opportunity, where the artificial barriers between the urban and the natural are

removed. Jeremijenko makes public art that aims to change the way people engage with science,

and the natural systems within their urban environment. Jeremijenko articulates how her practice

functions like a laboratory embedded within the environment:

Art is as much about making change happen as it is about making the things

themselves. We all need to be experimenting with what works to produce a

healthy, desirable future…the challenge for the 21st century is how to make urban

spaces livable, desirable, productive, healthy. The best tools we have—ones that

are ubiquitous, inexpensive, and demonstrated to work – are natural systems

(Pompilio, 2013).

Jeremijenko is Associate Professor of Art and is associated with the Computer Science

Department and Environmental Studies program at New York University, where she began the

Environmental Health Clinic (EHC).

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The EHC is one of the main components of Jeremijenko’s practice for socio-ecological

systems design, which operates within the standard institutional framework of the University.85

Technology is at the core of the clinic’s shared goal towards improving environmental health,

and since technology is always evolving, it provides new opportunities for investigating and

manifesting change. The EHC operates like a medical clinic, with “impatients.”86 Rather than

concurring with the patronizing idea that citizens are merely politically neutral spectators in a

consumer-driven culture, Jeremijenko works with impatients to activate and give individuals a

way to participate within their environment. These (re)mediated environments generate

information in turn. In Jeremijenko’s words:

The more radical way to redesign socioecological systems is to understand that

we are designing within complex systems, and we have very specific

opportunities that we can use and exploit that require participation, not fascist

bullying, and engaging the imagination. I know it works to engage people’s

imagination” (Evans, 2011).

Fundamentally, the clinic is a place for collaboration and establishing communication between

communities (human and non-human). By working in tandem with nature for a healthy

ecosystem, rather than suggesting simple fixes for systemic problems, Jeremijenko’s critique is

aimed at the institutions and groups of individuals making policy to determine the fate of our

85 The Environmental Health Clinic at NYU is a clinic and lab that approaches health from an

understanding of its dependence on external local environments rather than on the internal biology and genetic

predispositions of an individual (EHC, 2015).

86 Jeremijenko articulates that people who visit the clinic are called: “Not patients, but impatients, because

they're too impatient to wait for legislative change to address local and environmental health issues.” The EHC is a

clinic like a health clinic at any other university, except people come to the clinic with environmental health

concerns. Impatients leave the clinic with prescriptions for things they can do to improve environmental health, as

opposed to coming to a clinic with medical concerns and walking out with prescriptions for pharmaceuticals.

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society. By drawing on established practice of Institutional Critique,87 the EHC extends a

critique of art institutions to a critique of medical and governmental institutions, demonstrating

that environmental health is connected to human health. Aspects of existing medical models are

appropriated, like the prescription, to reimagine alternate practices and networks. Jeremijenko

states that this critique “reaches far beyond the collections of museums in which artists question

the absences in this cultural record. All legacy institutions are up for grabs for reimagining”

(Hutter, 2014). A driving concept of EHC is to redress the crisis of agency in non-human

biological organisms, such as trees, in the project TREExOFFICE (Figure 21).88 They question

the relevance of corporate personhood in a time when non-human biological organisms suffer

from a lack of agency. The EHC explores how individuals engage this dilemma for themselves,

by translating abstract information into tangible experience and providing novel models of

interaction in physical and social spaces. The interaction models examine the interaction as

mediated by technology. Jeremijenko does not assume that there is an existing ‘community,’

however; providing shared resources and experiences facilitates community building.

87 One of the movement's key aims was the exposure and ironization of the structures and logic of

museums and art galleries. Key artists include Andrea Fraser, Renée Green, Fred Wilson, Daniel Buren, Hans

Haacke, Louise Lawler, Michael Asher, and Marcel Broodthaers. See: Fraser et. al., 2006.

“One increasingly finds institutional critique accorded the unquestioning respect often granted artistic

phenomena that have achieved a certain historical status. That recognition, however, quickly becomes an occasion to

dismiss the critical claims associated with it, as resentment of its perceived exclusivity and high-handedness rushes

to the surface. How can artists who have become art-historical institutions themselves claim to critique the

institution of art?” (Fraser, 2005).

“Institutional critique…along with activist work…remain, for me, at this time, the most convincing

strategies for an art with claims to the political” (Meyer, 1993).

88 Installed through December 15, 2015, TREExOFFICE is a temporary installation transforming

contemporary work practices into a performance and lifestyle experiment. Driving conceptual issues include: Tree-

as-landlord, Rights of Nature, mutualistic systems design, business models for non-humans, ecstasy of the

commons, texting with a non-human, and contributing to tree, pollinator, and local environmental health (BBC

News, 2015; Tate Harmer, 2015).

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Jeremijenko’s numerous projects span more than two decades. While I find all of them

engaging and relevant, I am particularly drawn to Mussel Choir because of its humor, its

potential to stimulate discourse, and the potential benefits it can provide to its local environment.

For the purposes of this discussion I will discuss the version as installed in Melbourne as

historical basis with an eye towards situating the future installation in New York City. Though

the New York City installation is incomplete as of this writing, there has been extensive

preparation for its infrastructure, in ways that are both physical and social. I believe that Mussel

Choir is emblematic of a new American cultural trend towards choices that encourage

sustainable behavior from a large scale, one that promotes top-down societal change. In this way,

Jeremijenko goes beyond incremental individual participation.

Mussel Choir

Mussel Choir is a bio-sensing EV artwork that aims to engage the public on water quality

and the unseen complexities of urban ecology. Consisting of a live colony of a native species of

mussels, the artwork monitors the water filtration activities of these organisms and converts this

data into sound, which is available for passersby who can listen to the mussel choir in situ. The

first installation of Mussel Choir began at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennial (Figure 22), in

a group exhibition called “Spontaneous Interventions.” The project is a result of collaboration

amongst many, the main contributors including architect Mark Shepard from the Buffalo School

of Architecture and Planning and architect David Benjamin from The Living Architecture Lab at

Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.89 Since then,

the project has been produced globally, including in Melbourne, Australia, with Carbon Arts, and

89 The Living was just purchased by AutoDesk in a bold move by a company ready to embrace 21st Century

strategies of community and accessibility design (Maher, 2014).

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it is scheduled for installation in New York City in 2015 (Figure 23). In a major change of scale

and location, Mussel Choir was recently exhibited as a discrete sculpture in the exhibition “This

is What Sculpture Looks Like” in the Postmasters gallery during the summer of 2014.90

Jeremijenko’s work frequently shifts in both scale and location, as exemplified with another

xClinic project, Agbags.91 Formally installed en masse upon the façade of the Postmasters

Gallery as a vertical urban farm, each bag is a growing platform created out of Tyvek and filled

with soil, nutrients, edibles, and a time-lapse camera. Bags were available for the public to

purchase to develop their own food systems. Jeremijenko conceived of Agbags as a clinical trial,

a tool for testing and distributing scalable urban agriculture. Each of the white Agbags were

printed with a rotated red “X,” symbolic of the medical red cross and a recurring motif in her

work, standing in as the “X” and as a twist on health.

The red “X” was again present on the version of Mussel Choir as it was installed in

Postmasters Gallery in 2014. Jeremijenko described the discrete work as a pocket ecosystem

where the mussels rehearsed. The red “X” hovered over a clear, fused acrylic tank that sat on the

floor and was filled with water. Within the main tank were a series of mussels, each within their

own lit and vacuum-pressured plastic perch, “singing.” Jeremijenko described these spaces as “a

sort of luxury high rise apartment, for mussels. The view elevates the mussels to eye contact, or

90 “There are too many painting shows. There aren't enough sculpture shows. We are fixing that. Sixteen

artists. Sculpture has suffered negation in the discourse and the marketplace…Modernism and postmodernism

aggrandized the painting, the mark, the brush, the gesture, rendering sculpture's critical presence invisible, its space

a void. In the Internet age, painting and photography slide in and out of JPEGs while sculpture is left behind IRL, its

simulacra always giving the digital game away. By now we can't deny it: the critical theories we have erected have

proved impotent when confronting the fertile field of sculpture as it is practiced today. Artists are making sculptures

with all the overlooked verbs on Richard Serra's list (*). Sculpture exists in and defines not just physical space, but

psychic space, conceptual space, political space. And not just space, but our presence in it, our relationship to it, our

movement through it, our responsibility for it. Sculpture is physical, at once a thing, the space around it, and an

image, a full-spectrum experience imprinted on the brain and the body of the viewer (Postmasters, 2014).

91 For a full explanation of Agbags, including their form and constituent materials, see: EHC, 2014.

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rather bivalve to bilabia, breaching the insistent mirror-flat surfaces of our bodies of water and

giving voice to new possibilities. Wild observatories may lead to wild observations, wild claims

and more wildness in the urban context” (2014). Though the structure of the observatory defeats

the idea of wildness, the mode of presentation does bring together the human and non-human

nose-to-shell, allowing for direct examination and understanding of Jeremijenko’s application of

technology, and it lays the groundwork for the future version of Mussel Choir.

In 2012, New York City’s Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) approved the

reconstruction of a deteriorated storm sewer outfall pipe at the foot of Pier 35.92 A series of 30

extremely heavy concrete blocks, weighing between 11 and 59 tons each, were installed on top

of the outfall. In an unprecedented move NYCEDC allowed city planners to do something new,

beyond the requirements of state and federal regulatory agencies: introduce a sculptural object,

with grasses on one end and a small footbridge. The submerged concrete is intended to attract

mussel colonies on top of the outfall.93 Exposed at low tide and fully submerged at high tide, the

outcropping is ready for mussels to move in. Enter Jeremijenko’s innovative and novel Mussel

Choir, a technical-biological installation that sonifies silent mollusks as they go about doing

what they do: filtering water. The subtitle to Mussel Choir is explanatory: “Natural Intelligence

for Water Quality Sensing in Urban Habitats.” The installation lives underwater, mostly hidden

from view until the tide recedes to reveal the subaquatic real estate and its interconnected

technology. In the version of Mussel Choir that was installed in Melbourne, grouped mussel

92 The mission of NYCEDC is to realize New York City as the global model for inclusive innovation and

economic growth, fueled by the diversity of its people and businesses, by strengthening the City’s competitive

position and facilitating investments that grow quality jobs and cultivate dynamic, resilient, livable communities

throughout the five boroughs (NYCEDC, 2015).

93 Similar efforts are underway at Hunts Point Rivers and the Bronx Kill (LaSalle, 2010; and Loria, 2015).

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strands were connected with pink sensor wiring and multi-stranded heavy red rope to a red

circuit box in the tides (Figure 24).

Mussel Choir is literally a grouping of mollusks and wiring components that activate

when the mussels gape to filter water. Their movement triggers a responsive set of sounds. The

mussel shells are attached to a hall effect sensor94 and a rare earth magnet.95 As the mussel shell

opens and closes in response to local water conditions, data is extrapolated from movement and

converted into sound patterns. Audio mappings included sound pitch to water depth, timbre to

pollution levels, and tempo to the shell’s opening and closing. Arrays of these mussel-sensors are

incorporated into the mussel colony, and a computer program driven by the collected data

generates the choir’s sound.

Mussels are natural water purifiers. One mussel can filter approximately 6 liters of water

per hour, removing particulates and pollution. The larger the colony size, the larger the

environmental benefits. Mussels pump water through gills, simultaneously supplying oxygen and

filtering particles of food, which are then transported to the mussel’s mouth and stomach. Each

mussel is unique and has its own CHIGA (changes in gape angle per second). Since the mussel

life span can run the course of several decades, even up to a century, Mussel Choir can illustrate

the adaptation of organisms to evolving anthropogenic conditions. Using standard mussel-

farming techniques in Melbourne, Jeremijenko’s team established a scalable mussel population

of 5,000 individuals, 20 of which were instrumented. The mussel colony was established on a

94 A Hall effect sensor is a transducer that varies its output voltage in response to a magnetic field. Hall

effect sensors are used for proximity switching, positioning, speed detection, and current sensing applications. In its

simplest form, the sensor operates as an analog transducer, directly returning a voltage (Ramsden, 2006).

95 Rare-earth magnets are strong permanent magnets made from alloys of rare earth elements. They

produce significantly stronger magnetic fields than other types such as ferrite or alnico magnets. However, a new

material has been manufactured with nano-particles has the potential to revolutionize the manufacturing, transporta-

tion and clean-energy industries (Collette, 2012).

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rope system, a low-cost process commonly employed in mussel farming. Mussels prefer living in

the littoral zone (Figure 25) from suspended ropes. Vertical rope systems were created to

function as littoral zones. By doing so, Jeremijenko ensured that part of the mussel colony will

be viewable from the surface.

The intersection of the digital and biological is known as “Moistmedia,” a term coined by

artist/ theorist Roy Ascott in 2000 to conceptualize the joining of virtuality and biology in the

transformation of a new, fluid reality. Recognizing that intelligence is everywhere, Ascott says

that Moistmedia will be the future substrate of art and form new awareness:

This burgeoning awareness is technoetic: techne and gnosis combined into a new

knowledge of the world, a connective mind that is spawning new realities and

new definitions of life and human identity. This mind will in turn seek new forms

of embodiment and of articulation (2000, 2).

This new technoetic embodiment is exemplified with Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir as an agent of

environmental and social change. The mussel’s elusive biological mechanism is a phenomenon,

relegated to the submerged world and unencountered on land. Jeremijenko actualizes the

organisms so that their presence is sonified and made measurable for the terrestrially bound.

Though new and relatively untested, biological organisms can be used as sensors.

Biological organisms are integrative of a variety of variables, simply translating them into a

legible data stream. In a simple world, that legible data stream might appear as mussels singing,

therefore indicating that the water quality is good and the mussels are doing well (at least for

those who are on sensors).

An inspection of Jeremijenko’s data assignments indicate layered over-complexity and

can obscure information: for example, water quality is indicated by a blue or red LED; the

presence of fish illuminates an underwater path; human interest through text messages results in

a variety of blinking lights; air quality has another set of blue and red LEDs; the presence of

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people triggers a blue LED; activity of birds prompts both sound and light; and finally, the

mussel choir sings, at dusk and in individual regions (Figure 26). A data set that incorporates

water pH, dissolved oxygen, turgidity, and the meaning of those combinations is discipline-

specific knowledge – a difficult to understand dataset for the layperson. Jeremijenko clearly

articulates the biological organism (whether mussel or butterfly) as a point of human interest and

engagement. In this case, the biological organism indicates a healthy ecosystem:

This butterfly is critically dependent on the sage grass that only grows in

particular brackish water and I knew that if the animal volunteers to be there, then

I’ve done a good job…This is legible for everyone… It’s the independence of that

butterfly, it’s autonomy, it’s agency to say, “I’ll hang out here” that really

validates what I’m trying to do (Substratum, 2011).

The biological organism (the mussel) can function as one component of a complex system that

indicate water health, which include dissolved oxygen, water temperature, pH, escherichia coli,

specific conductance, nitrates, transparency, and visual tests.96 The data collected from the

mussels will be specific record of their CHIGA frequency and how they have colonized. The

mussel colonies will contribute to the stream of environmental data as collected from selected

ecosystems where they have historically existed and are being re-introduced. Like other

biological organisms, mussel colonies behave in response to environmental pollutants and can be

an indicator of ecosystem health.97 For decades, mussels have been studied around the world as

bioindicators and biomonitors, as they are sensitive to anthropogenic contaminants like trace

metal pollution and PCBs; landscape alterations including sedimentation from impoundment and

96 These measurements provide a snapshot of water conditions as a basis for further analysis. The

measurements can be applied to any body of water (LCRA, 2014).

For further reading regarding microbial water quality, see: Ashbolt, 2001.

97 A key indicator of environmental health and biodiversity are amphibian species. Research suggests that

we cannot rely on data from only one species as a bioindicator, but that a suite of bioindicators is required. See:

Sewell and Griffiths, 2009.

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marine dredging; and boat traffic (Grabarkiewicz and Davis, 2008). Future data could be

collected from mussel colonies, checking for colony establishment and reproduction.

Establishing new mussel colonies in urban areas is one step towards supporting the future of

urban biodiversity as a global movement.98

Mussel Choir translates data through sonification, using a rules-based methodology of

wherein specific sounds are attributed to the local ecosystem. For example, the songs map

parameters such as water depth to sound pitch, presence of pollutants to sound timbre, and the

rate of the opening and closing of mussel shells to sound tempo. Jeremijenko notes,

The aim is to clearly represent the qualities of water, rather than to represent

water quality as it has been codified for regulatory purposes. There are two main

choral modes: real time “mussel tone” and the data review or mussel performance

mode. (Carbon Arts, 2013).

The sounds of the real time “mussel tone” are controlled through changes in the mussel gape. As

the mussels open and close during water filtration, the gape angle triggers an arpeggio around a

chord. Overlaid on this chord is the Shepard tone effect, controlled by the tides: as the tide is

incoming, the tones appear to ascend; as tide retreats the tones appear to descend.99 The chords

use both functional and modal harmony to map the turbidity of the water, a critical parameter

that expresses the degree to which light is scattered and absorbed by particles suspended in the

water column, directly effecting the underwater food network. During the mussel performance

mode, Mussel Choir sings “Daisy Bell,” alluding to recent computational history with the first

98 Fostering biodiversity in urban and suburban areas is one way to support a rapidly diminishing

ecosystem, and work towards establishing “green cities.” See: Conniff, 2014.

99 The Shepard tone is named after the cognitive scientist Roger Shepard. The Shepard tone is a sound

consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone

moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that

continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower. See: Shepard, 1964.

For a sonic example of a Shepard Tone, see: Icydrift, 2012.

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invented speech synthesis experiment in 1961. At that time, Bell Labs demonstrated the sound of

computerized speech patterns with a powerful (at that time) IBM 704 computer. The machine

sang “Daisy Bell:”

Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer, do.

I’m half crazy all for the love of you.

Previous machine-speech interfaces employed “Daisy Bell” as a defining structure. In Stanley

Kubrick’s 1968 “2001: A Space Odyssey,” the computer HAL 9000 sang “Daisy Bell” when it

regressed; the Homebrew Computer Club created a machine-speech interface using a radio and

an Altair 8800 in 1975 that sang the refrain;100 and on the IPhone 4S when Siri is asked to sing,

she repeats “Daisy Bell.” Finally, Aaron Koblin and Daniel Massey encouraged 2000 people to

contribute their voices to the song via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk101 (Gallardo, 2013). Though

Mussel Choir is an intelligent singing enterprise simultaneously looking back to reference history

and reaching forward into the future of NI, there seems to be too much referential reliance on the

“Daisy Bell” lineage. It remains unclear why Jeremijenko is choosing to memorialize “Daisy

Bell” using mollusks, and I question this particular sonic choice as vocal representation. The

overt reference to the history of speech synthesis distracts from the beauty and complexity

inherent in Mussel Choir. The mussel performance mode functions as a triggered recording and

sound playback rather than vocal synthesis. There are other possible ways to capture the sound of

100 The Homebrew Computer Club is the birthplace of the entire personal computer revolution. See

Wozniack, 1984.

101 Bicycle Built For 2,000 was synthesized with a distributed system of human voices from all over the

world. This was made possible with the MTurk platform where the artists invited workers to listen to a short sound

clip, and to then record themselves imitating what they heard. People from 71 countries responded and each was

paid $0.06 USD for his/her work. Bicycle Built for 2,000 is a comment on only on today’s forms of precarious

immaterial labour but also on our inability to detach ourselves from the media reality and the continuous

preoccupation with it (EMST, 2009).

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the mussels by using the AC impulse captured by the already employed hall sensor. Once

amplified, the raw output could be ambient, unrecognizable, and beautiful in its abstraction.

Mussel Choir is not embedded in the history of computer synthesized voice programming; rather,

it is a mapping of sounds to controlling parameters. The reference to historical voice synthesis

seems and heavy handed because the anthropormorphization of mussels by mapping of human

vocals (or the computerized version of them) prompts thoughts of Disney movies where every

animal becomes humanized and likeable. I argue that for Mussel Choir, this calculated move is

unnecessary because we already see them positively as collaborators, protagonists, neighbors,

and allies.

Mussel Choir is a multifaceted installation that provides the opportunity to develop a

deeper ecological understanding of a shared urban habitat. Through this knowledge and

appreciation, the mussel colony will encourage curiosity and public commitment to ecological

knowledge. Real estate at the water’s edge is a charged space normally associated with leisure

activities and distraction, but Mussel Choir inverts this expectation through the exploration of

data on immediate local estuarine water quality through visceral experience. Urban aquatic

phenomena become intimate and relatable, demonstrating how we can make the intersection of

land, air, water and urban systems more productive and viable. In an economy buttressed by the

entertainment industry, Mussel Choir becomes the focus, a new community service-oriented

commodity, and a water-cleaning spectacle for the future of green cities.

Conclusion

Each of these works, Cloud Car and Particle Falls, The Sandy Rides, and Mussel Choir,

exemplifies the broadened definition of EV through their mode of representation. Ranging from

Polli’s repurposed car and digital waterfall that make smog visible, to Miebach’s discrete

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sculptures playfully materializing storms, to Jeremijenko’s electronic singing mussel colonies,

these EV works go beyond the screen to offer unique ways for the presentation and interpretation

of data, and the conception of a healthy, sustainable, diverse planet. Through creative translation,

these artists make comprehensible the factors impacting our environment by examining the very

way we look at data. They question how we see environmental data by employing a variety of

visual and auditory elements help us to see and hear while simultaneously investigating how

those same elements might prevent clarity and insight. Of particular relevance to my studio

practice is Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides, which employs complex datasets of weather

events and related phenomena and translates this information into complex, visually playful

sculptures made with common materials and parts of childrens’ toys.

Polli, Miebach, and Jeremijenko are concerned with our global ecosystem as a whole,

though their work related directly to air pollution, climate change (storm patterns), and urban

ecological systems. Their incorporation of a variety of modes of representation that visualize

environmental information are indicative of our changing perception of the human impact upon

the environment and ecology. These projects provide a solid foundation that informed my

conceptual development, data collection, material choices, and mode of representation for my

creative work, Sculpting Corn Production. Like them, I am concerned with the global ecosystem

and feel distress when considering climate change, environmental degradation, and the loss of

biodiversity. I chose to work with factory-farmed corn as an entry point to the broad discussion

of the environment. In the next chapter I will discuss the historical precedents of the corn

industry and how it informed my creative project. I will link my creative project to the EV work

discussed here, and to a lesser extent, in Chapter One. I expect my research and creative project

to be a foundation for my future studio work and research.

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Chapter Three: Sculpting Corn Production

Introduction: A Patriotic Grain

Agriculture holds an esteemed place within the American identity, conjuring images of

amber fields of grain, a small family farm, and an idealized “authentic” America. Corn is a major

part of that powerful imagery but it did not begin to shape our collective national consciousness

with success when it was first encountered. The first white settlers agreed with the herbalist John

Gerard in 1597 when he described corn, a staple of the Native American diet, as a “heathan

graine” (McWilliams, 2005, 8).102 Originally seen as fit only for animal feed, corn was slowly

assimilated into the dominant colonial diet. Though historically American cooking was

distinguished by creole cuisine, taste was reconfigured as part of the process of cultural

adaptation and domination of North America. Corn was rapidly accepted into the colonial diet.

By the middle of the 17th Century, the newly settled English were consuming corn as a staple by

incorporating it into a variety of food products, like quick breads, whipped cornmeal pudding,

and brewed beer. Highly political, corn as a main food source became an essential part of the

cohesive Colonial American identity and underscored the connection to their land.103

102 John Gerard’s 1597 Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes was popular, and strived for greater

accuracy in publication. Discoveries of previously unknown plants brought over from the Americas familiarized

botanists with the concept of geographical variation and distribution. In Gerard’s herbal, locations of plants were

added with the help of a network of correspondents in England to detail where plants had been found. Although

Renaissance herbalists were critical of medieval practices, they inherited the tradition of plant portraiture from their

predecessors. The tradition was much improved by this new wave of herbalists who used illustrations drawn from

actual plants, rather than stock images privileging mythological or emblematic considerations, which were useless

for identification purposes. See: Gerard, 1597.

103 For an historically contextualized discussion of food and its connection to the creation of a national

identity, see: McWilliams, 2005; Smith. 2007.

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Today corn remains a mainstay of an idealized America, with overlapping identities

ranging from the profitable and powerful industrial mega-giant producing ethanol fuel and

factory goods; to the hardworking pastoral agrarian overseeing miles of waving grain; to the

benevolent provider as a global food producer and supplier. It’s a numbers game: the United

States’ corn harvest accounts for approximately 40% of the world’s overall corn production,

projected at a total value of $76.62 billion annually and growing. Corn is processed into over

3,500 forms, including plastics, fuel ethanol, alcohol for beverages, animal feed silage, pet food,

sugars and cereal starches for human consumption, oil, penicillin, and glue. Contemporary

farmers grow five times more corn than they did in the 1930s and on 20% less land. Historically,

farmers could harvest an average of 100 bushels of corn by hand in a nine-hour day. Now

mechanized combines harvest 900 bushels of corn per hour, equal to 100 bushels in less than

seven minutes. The 2014 harvest was valued at $51.89 billion. No matter which way this

information is encountered, there is a lot of money embedded in this valuable crop, and the sheer

scale of production and distribution is totally overwhelming. The data from the production and

distribution is available from primary sources including the United States Department of

Agriculture (USDA). The USDA data is aggregate statistical and economic information,

presented without analysis and little to no explanation, and with even fewer visually supporting

diagrams. The specificity of detail, abundance of information, and lack of supporting visual

documentation is where I found a foothold to begin my creative endeavor.

I entered this confusing (and seemingly boundless) field several years ago when living

deep amidst cornfields in central Ohio at Kenyon College, as an artist in residence. The social

isolation and sheer loveliness of the place were striking, but there was a resonant chord of

disquiet amongst the stalks. At the same time I also became aware of a persistent allergic

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reaction that was finally attributed to my processed-corn consumption. Fueled by concern, I

could not stop thinking about the miles and miles of cornfields, the endless farming and rotation,

how corn was in almost every processed food product in the supermarket, and how it is the

substrate of countless products and fuels. Corn was unavoidable and literally surrounded me. I

also began to have a sense that all the corn production was not good for the environment, a

feeling justified by the research of the effects of monoculture farming. My place-based distress,

the experience of solastalgia, was connected to feelings of powerlessness around the

environmental injustice of corn production. Albrecht asserts that solastalgia

Has universal relevance in any context where there is the direct experience of

transformation or destruction of the physical environment (home) by forces that

undermine a personal and community sense of identity and control… the

experience of solastalgia is now possible for people who strongly empathize with

the idea that the earth is their home and that witnessing events destroying endemic

place identity (cultural and biological diversity) at any place on earth are

personally distressing to them (2005, 49).

In response to my distress I investigated how corn came to be a dominant material in food and

consumer goods, and was preliminarily stymied by the vast amount of interrelated information

from various sources. Very little of this data was visualized except in graphical forms, in self-

congratulatory, celebratory documents like the annual “World of Corn” published by the

National Corn Growers Association (NCGA).104 After locating the appropriate data banks and

researching data relating to corn production, I began visualizing this data three-dimensionally,

constructing physicalized forms.

The body of this chapter is divided into three main sections. First, I describe the creative

project - consisting of three discrete small sculptures - and the process involved in their

conception, creation, and presentation. In this first section I highlight the specific data informing

104 “World of Corn” is available annually from 2000. See: NCGA, 2015.

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the sculptures. Second, I position the sculptures in relation to the concepts and works discussed

in the previous chapters. The creative project results in conclusions that affect how I consider my

own creative process, and I discuss specifically the links between the creative and scholarly

processes not obvious during the process. In the concluding section, I look forward to future

research and creative efforts. I anticipate that the investigative study will point to further areas

for additional research, and that the creative project will lead to new avenues and ideas for

concepts and artworks.

Creative Project: Sculpting Corn Production

Data Collection

I began the research on my topic with a simple question, assuming that I would find

discrete economic data that would culminate in a clear answer. As I began this dissertation

research, I encountered abundant literature discussing corn as a subsidized commodity, wherein

farmers benefitted from Loan Deficiency Payments, Counter Cyclical Payments, and other

governmentally financed support systems. Intrigued by the large sums indicated in the reports, I

started with a seemingly simple question that led to further insights. My question began in this

form: What does an individual taxpayer spend on US corn subsidies annually? Though

interesting, my original question was under-developed due to a lack of knowledge of the

structure of actually reported USDA crop data. I assumed that I would locate the data on

individual crop subsidies and place said data in relationship to census population data. With that

critical information in hand, I could then derive a number using straightforward mathematical

equations. Though this approach did not lead to the answer that I had originally hoped for, it did

help me find all the data that ultimately resulted in the creative project. During this period of

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research, the collected data was transformed from how it was listed as a tabulated set of numbers

into something much more rich and tangible, the stuff of my sculptures. When encountering this

data I considered Ben Fry’s suggestion from Visualizing Data:

...the most important part of understanding data is identifying the question that

you want to answer. Rather than thinking about the data that was collected, think

about how it will be used and work backward to what was collected. You collect

data because you want to show something about it. If you don’t really want to

know why you are collecting it, you’re just hoarding it (2008, 4).

My early data collection methodology consisted of researching relevant articles and

primary sources associated with the corn production industry. This gave me a broad overview of

the field, and it contextualized the main issues surrounding industrial corn production and

processing. These areas of interest include the impact of ethanol subsidies on global corn

production105, the contribution of processed corn to nutrition and nationwide obesity levels,106

data on USDA nutrition programs since 1969,107 the evolution of corn including genome-wide

changes during the breeding of maize,108 the comprehensive genetic analysis of corn for new

varieties,109 the visual mapping of the corn genome by the National Science Foundation,110 and

105 Analysts encounter complexity when discussing the impact of ethanol production on corn prices. For a

thorough discussion of the issue, see: Babcock and Fabiosa, 2011; and Valles, 2014.

106 Nationwide obesity levels have been steadily rising since the 1970’s, at about the same time corn

sweeteners became a staple of the American diet. See: Hawkes et. al., 2015; Fryar et al., 2014; and Fryar et. al.,

2012.

107 The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service offers datasheets on their historical nutrition spending.

Governmental spending for food assistance programs was trending upward until 2014, when program funding was

cut. See: “Snap Benefits Summary,” 2015.

108 The success of modern maize breeding has been demonstrated by remarkable increases in productivity

over the last four decades. Research shows that modern breeding has introduced highly dynamic genetic changes

into the maize genome. Genetic changes during breeding happen rapidly, see: Jiao et. al., 2012.

109 Future strains of corn may resist pests and disease, see: Hufford et. al., 2012.

110 This new genome sequence reports the sequence of genes in maize and provides a detailed physical map

of the maize genome. This map identifies the order in which genes are located along each of maize's 10

chromosomes and the physical distances between those genes, see: National Science Foundation, 2009.

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environmental degradation due to chemical usage.111 The environmental degradation information

was particularly troubling, and it heightened my sense of solastalgia when considering the

thousands of acres of cropland, rivers, and adjacent environment affected by monoculture

farming.

Along with relevant articles documenting the history and complexity of Farm Bills,112 I

found in-depth analysis of governmental subsidy spending for the last decade from the

Environmental Working Group (EWG),113 an overview of fiscal policies114 and visual data

indemnity maps from the USDA’s Risk Management Agency (RMA),115 relevant reports and

trend analysis from Amber Waves116 and the USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS), and

111 Scientists and global policy makers cite the link between agricultural practices and environmental

degradation, see: UNCTAD, 2010 and Kleinschmit, 2009.

Grid-Arendal, in association with the United Nations Environment Program, released a comprehensive

analysis of the environmental food crisis, see: Nellema et. al., 2009.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) released a report in 2011 documenting soil erosion due to

farming, see: Cox et el., 2011.

112 The Washington Post ran a series of in-depth articles documenting how the government overspent by

$15 billion in redundant spending on subsidies. See: Morgan et. al., 2006.

On taxpayer supported corn and soy subsidies, and the lack of subsidies for healthier alternatives, see:

Haspel, 2014.

For an explanation of the eight different kinds of farm subsidies, including farm insurance, see: Edwards,

2009.

The United States federal government had no role in farming. It is now intertwined in all aspects of

farming, from planting to harvesting to selling crops. For a history of American farm subsidies, see: Folsom, 2006.

113 The EWG has a listing of top subsidy recipients from 1995-2012, by state, and visually represents corn

subsidies. See: EWG, 2012.

114 Indemnities are payment made by a government insurance product. For yield insurance, indemnity

payments occur when yield is below a yield guarantee. For revenue insurance, indemnity payments occur when

revenue is below a revenue guarantee. Multiple peril crop insurance will also pay indemnities in other cases such as

prevented plantings. For an overview of the different available crop insurance policies, see: USDA RMA, 2015.

115 Data Indemnity Map, from 6/29/15, documenting crop indemnity by county on a visual map, see USDA

RMA, 2015a.

116 Amber Waves is a USDA ERS publication dedicated to the broad understanding of food, farming,

natural resources, and rural America. Amber Waves, 2015.

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the USDA ERS Farm Program Atlas117 and Farm Data Documentation maps.118 These early

resources buttressed my broad understanding of the political, fiscal, environmental, and health

issues connected with governmental farm spending programs. With this background, I was able

to comprehend and begin analysis of numerical content. Most importantly I found historical data

banks regarding all aspects of corn production compiled from 1866, from the USDA ERS

Summary of Business Reports and Data,119 the USDA Feed Grains Yearbook Tables,120 USDA

Agricultural Projections to 2024,121 USDA ERS Feed Grains Database,122 the USDA ERS

granular data relating to corn in both Commodity Costs and Returns database,123 and the

National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) commodity database.124 Other critical

information sources include the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) annual reports and

117 All Farm Program Atlas data is organized in a spreadsheet by payment program and available by state

and county, see: USDA ERS, 2015b.

118 For an interactive map documenting Direct and Countercyclical Program since 2009, see: USDA ERS,

2012.

119 A variety of reports are pre-generated by crop, see: USDA ERS, 2015c.

120 The June 2015 Feed Outlook report contains projections for the 2015/16 U.S. and global feed markets

based on the most current World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. See: Capehart et. al., 2015.

121 Released in February 2015, the Report provides long run projections for the farm sector for the next 10

years. These annual projections cover agricultural commodities, agricultural trade, and aggregate indicators of the

sector, such as farm income. See: Westcott and Hansen, 2015.

122 The Feed Grains Database is an interactive application. Information includes but is not limited to the

following: Supply: beginning stocks, production, and imports; Demand: utilization for food, seed, and industrial

uses, feed and residual, exports, and ending stocks; Prices: farm and market prices; Quantities feed: concentrates,

oilseed meals, and animal- and grain-protein feeds; Feed-price ratios for livestock, poultry, and milk. See: Capehart,

2015.

123 Cost and return estimates are reported for the United States and major production regions for corn,

soybeans, wheat, cotton, grain sorghum, rice, peanuts, oats, barley, milk, hogs, and cow-calf. The history of

commodity cost and return estimates for the U.S. and regions is divided into three categories: Current, Recent, and

Historical estimates. See: McBride, 2015.

124 The USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) conducts hundreds of surveys every year

and prepares reports covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture. Production and supplies of food and fiber,

prices paid and received by farmers, farm labor and wages, farm finances, chemical use, and changes in the

demographics of U.S. producers are only a few examples. See: USDA NASS, 2015.

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the USDA Budget Summary and Annual Performance Plans.125 These select databases, in

conjunction with US Census population information, provided almost all the needed data from

closed-set databases for the creative project.

Once the data was sourced and assembled, I began analysis and response to the hundreds

of pages of data representing numerically based insight into American corn agribusiness. This

amount of data was overwhelming and unknowable in its totality, density, and disparity. In the

USDA Annual reports, financial data is provided in labeled tables in millions of dollars,

including total listed net enacted, estimated, and budgeted outlays in every area. In user-driven

farming databases, the USDA provided numerical data that was far-reaching and subdivided

geographically by state and county: the number of acres planted and harvested; the number of

bushels produced by acre; overall crop insurance plans for corn, hybrid corn, and sweet corn in

liabilities, premium, and subsidy; U.S. corn production costs and returns per planted acre,

excluding government payments; and the corn feed ratios for a variety of farm animals. Some

data was nationwide by year or growing season in the millions of bushels and / or acres: prices

received by farmers; the number of acres planted and harvested; the yield per harvested acre;

overall production; beginning and ending stocks; food, seed, alcohol, and industrial use; overall

imports and exports; feed and residual use, by species of domestic animal; domestic use and total

disappearance; alcohol for fuel, beverage, and manufacturing use; starch, cereal, and other

product use; CCC-owned inventory (stocks and oversupply) - also subdivided by monthly stock

price; high-fructose corn syrup, glucose, and dextrose use; and world corn production,

125 By far the most comprehensive and easy to read database for government spending is the 2016 Fiscal

Budget. New and online, it is released in a spirit of transparency. Each year, the United States' Office of

Management and Budget (OMB) releases the Budget Message of the President, information on the President's

priorities and initiatives, and key data to support the proposed budget, see: White House Budget, 2015.

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consumption, imports, and exports. Other data came in the form of percentages: overall USDA

budget outlays, subdivided by nutrition assistance, conservation and forestry, and farm and

commodity programs; the use of genetically modified seed and its subdivision by type; organic

corn acreage; the components of yellow dent corn; production needed for future use in 2020; and

the rise in Biotech corn adopted by farmers.

In this raw form the data was meaningless, necessitating a series of rules to create

meaning and provide a visual language. I established that the first step in analysis was to

simplify and parse the information by choosing to represent nationwide data rather than that

which was divided by state and county. Locating data that was less geographically granular

eliminated extraneous, obfuscating information. From that point I organized the data into

smaller, manageable sets wherein interconnections emerged and discrepancies within the data

became clear. For example, the data for High-Fructose Towers revealed that corn sweetener use

spiked, as did corn planting. The data also shows another major change: that corn sweetener use

did not plateau after the spike, but continued to fall. Because of the data discrepancies, I was able

to extract both interest and meaning from the data to begin making form.

Once these steps were completed, the information became a tangible substrate to be

represented visually and manifested as form. However, even when simplified, the data sets

remained unmanageable as a jumble of statistics, an overlapping tangle of evidence within which

no clear picture emerged. Even though the data was reduced, clarity was elusive.

The creative project is the first time that I have started with a dataset as the driver for

concept, narrative, and form. Since working with numerical data was new to me, I started with

very small groupings of data and made a series of rules specific to each sculpture, which

influenced each in both structure and scale. There were some excellent failures along the way,

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specifically whenever I strayed from allowing the data to directly dictate form, as in the slant of a

line, or the number of needed sections. However, it was the failures that promoted creative

growth and furthered visual exploration, in scale, line quality, layout, layering, color use, and

overall form. Since 50% of the creative project was previously an unknown area of studio

exploration, I chose familiar materials (paper) and processes (digital drawing, laser cutting, and

precision scoring / folding) to make the sculptures.

My material of choice is an archival, acid-free translucent 110 lb coated paper that

refracts and disperses light, which allows for excellent high-contrast photographic

documentation. Through experimentation, I ascertained that this paper absorbs ink, does not tear

easily, glues relatively well without much buckling, is forgiving with handling errors, and is

made with enough natural fibers and a thin coating permitting work with the laser cutter. Since

this paper is heavy and thick, it also holds creases, curves, and supports itself if stood on end,

even when 90% of the material is removed.

Data was the main consideration for form, and influenced every successful drawing. Each

was constrained to a 16” by 12” compositional space due to the size of the laser cutter bed. I

consider this to be a tiny amount of material real estate to work within and it certainly forced me

to creatively engineer objects larger than 16” in any dimension. Preliminary sketches were made

with pencil and ink on paper, but all of the layout designs were made in Adobe Illustrator, a

vector drawing program. Each pattern design was based on data, which were driven by a

sculpture specific, rule-based system. The design logic was maintained for each sculpture and

necessarily changed with the individual datasets, as I worked to experiment within each design.

For example, the vertical spiraling grid of the first sculpture needed to plot 150 years of data over

three horizontal pages. The grid also needed to represent an explosive population growth of 300

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million persons but not exceed an upright height of 12”. For this grid, I chose a strong ⅛” wide

line weight was chosen for both the horizontal and vertical lines, with ½” squares. The angle of

growth was based on population growth. The entire length of the completed cut object is 15.25”

tall x 45” wide, which was then manipulated into an 8” wide spiral and glued with connective

pieces.

One of my main goals was to work on a smaller scale (18” height x 10” width or less)

since most of my previous work consists of large-scale installations and objects. Adapting my

processes to this rule of scale was critical because I see the creative project as laying the

foundation for future work, and thus, as a series of experimental three-dimensional “sketches”

toward larger sculptures. All my past work began as paper and / or cardboard models, which is

the way in which I conceive of installations and sculptures. Paper became the final presentation

material for these three data sculptures. Therefore, processing the paper accurately with precision

was essential to success. The forms I chose to represent data are tiny, detailed, and impossible

for me to cut by hand. The laser cutter translated vector drawings based on line quality and

silhouette into manageable objects. Each drawing was tested and cut for scale checks and

accuracy. Some shapes seemed large and clunky, requiring total redesign after they were cut in

paper. Other line weights were infinitesimal, and the laser cutter burned the paper away,

rendering them unusable. Some designs just did not cut well due to technical machine

complications. Other designs were not chosen at this time because of personal choice. Successful

paper forms were then manipulated post-process and glued with PVA to hold a shape. The

miniature shapes required small tools for manipulation: curved bent-nose jewelry pliers and

toothpicks were employed for positioning, clamping, and glue application.

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The silhouettes are familiar, common industrial forms that are strong compositional

elements in my past work that hold both personal and cultural significance. Architecturally

inspired towers, fences, grids, silos, concentric ovals, and linear reticles are all structures and

geometry present in my other work. These constructions are emblematic of industrialized culture,

are omnipresent within suburban and rural landscapes, and are part of a shared collective

American agrarian consciousness that positions us within our fields of production. Silos, towers,

and other agrarian architecture represent the rampant overuse and abuse of our shared farmland.

While these structures seem celebratory and benign, they represent a culture of unsustainable

land use dependent upon limited (and polluting) fossil- and carbon-based fuels.

In the creative project, each sculpture is assigned meaning in order to embody data. I

consider these fabrications symbolic, holding data-driven content while being both abstracted

and aesthetic. In other words, these three sculptures are physicalized eco-visualizations but their

meaning and represented data are purposely removed from a clear reading by the viewer.

Each of the sculptures is a discrete exercise identifying a new process for my work,

serving as one way for me to examine how to work with data as substrate, and subsequently how

to translate the information into form with meaning. The overarching purpose of my research

was to deeply investigate the corn-production industry in order to further my own understanding

of our food production in the U.S. I did not start this project from a position of judgment, nor do

I wish to castigate individuals for their personal food choices. Looking at our food production

holistically I see that few choices are as cut and dried as one could hope.126 However, I do think

126 Perhaps one of the only ways to avoid the pitfalls of our food production system is to grow our own

food. See: Kingsolver, 2007.

Ensuring that every individual has affordable access to sufficient and nutritious food is a profoundly

important and consensual moral imperative. However, while there is no debate about the moral imperative to feed

the world, there are contested visions of what it means to feed the world ethically. Feeding the world ethically could

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that we as consumers can make better choices in terms of food consumption for ourselves and for

the health of our global ecosystem. I reached this conclusion as one dataset led to another,

starting with Corn Production, whose years began with the first recorded corn harvest in 1866.

The rapid growth of corn as a staple crop is part of what compelled me to explore the excessive

harvests and corn grain surplus since the 1970s. This information led to the second sculpture,

High-Fructose Towers. This sculpture compares data from three select years wherein there was a

discrepancy in the corn sweetener data, either in production or consumption. Each of the three

years sampled by this dataset featured a high numerical value that did not plateau, but in

comparison went sharply down. The relatively limited dataset of the second sculpture functioned

as impetus to visualize a larger set, informed again by the corn grain surplus. The excessive

harvest is directly linked to genetically modified corn as supported by the use of pesticides,

herbicides, and fertilizers. This information drove the dataset for Biotech Silo, an examination of

the rapid adoption of genetically modified grain and the change within the farming industry

across the U.S. Linked conceptually; the sculptures are discrete exercises with form.

mean ensuring universal access to what is needed nutritionally for human survival and mitigating hunger; it could be

securing a sufficient quantity and quality for a high quality of life; it could extend to include the welfare and rights

of agricultural workers and farmers, the environment, and the well-being of nonhuman animals; and it could mean

protecting choice in the marketplace or on respecting cultural and national traditions and ways of life. The challenge

for ethically acceptable global food security is to find a path forward, where tangible progress on ethical issues and

disagreements in global food policy and practice is possible even in the absence of consensus about relevant values

and permissible means. See: Faden, 2013.

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Past Project: Subrural

In 2010 I was at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, as the Mesaros Artist in Residence.

During that time I read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), a thorough discussion

of the dysfunction of the entire American industrial food complex.127 Pollan details how corn is

at the base of the national food chain, explaining how its growth, processing, and sale constitute

a titanic industry which is focused on increasing profits rather than health and well-being.

Pollan’s work was personally influential; I began to see the cornfields surrounding me in a new

light. Rather than recognizing them as an element of natural beauty or even neutral backdrop to

agrarian landscape features, the giant fields became symbolic of the ongoing ecological

industrial disaster. I began to feel forlorn and powerless amidst the miles of corn monoculture.

This new insight informed a body of work that is directly related to my creative project. Created

in collaboration with Kenyon College Professor Karen Snouffer128 and Matthew McCormack,

Subrural was an installation work exploring the increasing homogeneity and continuing

dichotomies of urban and rural environments. This work was narrative in intent, a visual

reimagining of an increasingly industrialized rural landscape. The work sought to address the

cultural anxiety experienced at the intersections of these familiar but unpredictable places and

ecologies. Though not directly visualizing cornfields, Subrural was a visual narrative informed

by the complex systems of large-scale agribusiness and its pervasive and negative impact upon

the environment and landscape.

127 Though I don’t subscribe to the idea that Pollan is an expert on all things food-related, his writings were

key inspirations for my research.

128 Karen Snouffer is an artist whose work concentrates on installation and multi-media, exploring themes

of identity, history and place. See: Snouffer, 2015.

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Subrural marked the beginning of the exploration of repeated visual elements informed

by the rural agrarian landscape, including abstracted invasive flora and fauna and the similarly

invasive architecture of the electrical grid. Using translucent polycarbonate plastic sheet,

fiberglass window screen, paint, and thread, we created a series of printed, enlarged cicada wings

which were layered into large swaths throughout the installation. The same materials were used

to create contorted, undulating vines informed by species like Japanese honeysuckle, a plant

which thrives in disturbed habitats, such as roadsides, trails, fencerows, abandoned fields, and

forest edges. Disturbances such as logging, road building, floods, and windstorms create an

opportunity for this vine to invade native plant communities. Cicadas also figured within the

work as a visual response to the Brood II emergence during 2013.129 Oversize power towers,

plasma cut from metal, were wired with blinking red lights. Crisscrossing electrical wires

functioned as large gestural patterns, subdividing the space and terminating in a field of

windmills. The windmills stood as a vestige of hope for a new consciousness surrounding

landscapes of energy.

Ultimately, Subrural was a meditation on the desire for control, shifting boundaries, and

the environment. Rather than a specific protest or a call to action, Subrural was a series of

observations about the changing rural landscape, based on personal experience and the

overarching narrative informed by The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Contemporary societies string

wires and roads together, connecting and implicating us all in an ever-burning thirst for energy

and development. Likewise, our actions are invasive upon the landscape and climate, not unlike

the plants and insects we seek to manage and control.

129 Periodic cicadas are unique in their combination of long, prime-numbered life cycles (13 or 17 years),

precisely timed mass emergences, and active choruses. See: Magicicada Mapping Project, 2015.

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Design Rationale: Spiraling Corn Production

Spiraling Corn Production is the first and most straightforward data representation of the

three sculptures, stemming from a desire to visualize the rampant upward spiral of both US corn

production and population (Figure 1 and 2). I materialized this sculpture as if it was vertically

extruding data from a flat page, as if from a two-dimensional graph. In the finished piece, the

spiral moves counterclockwise around an invisible center point, with the vertical walls moving

upward from a height of 1” at the beginning outside edge to 15” high at the inner ring. The

vertical walls of the spiral represent the United States’ population growth as documented for the

years 1866 through 2014, and projected to 2016, marked in increments of 15 million per every

vertical row. Population representation begins at approximately 36 million persons and ends at

318 million persons. Plotted at the top line upon this graph is the data for Annual Corn,

Harvested Acres, in Millions, marked with red spacers and florescent yellow diamonds. Years

are indicated on the bottom edge of the spiral. Population values are indicated in the innermost

spiral and on the very outer rim, and fluctuations account for the uneven top, as the growth of

both population and agricultural production is visualized on a steady incline. The horizontal

length of the spiral is guided by the number of years for which data is gathered, from 1866 to

2014, and projected data to 2016, with the most recent years positioned centrally in the spiral.

The relationship of production to population growth is maintained logically within the work.

Spiraling Corn Production represents exactly 150 years of data, plotted every two years.

Since this was the first sculpture created, I was cautious with the amount of information

visualized in order to avoid optical confusion. I limited the information to every two years of

census population data and the millions of acres of harvested corn. When first analyzing the data

for Spiraling Corn Production, I remembered Hick’s Law: the time required to make a decision

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increases as the number of variables increases (Hick, 1952). I was struggling with how to handle

data and form. Accordingly, I tried to simplify the data set in order to make design decisions. To

further my understanding of the data, I took it one step further by creating a clear relationship by

adjusting the Production of Bushels for population growth in order to understand the actual

growth of the corn crop. However, once it came to plotting this data dimensionally, I made the

choice not to include the “Adjusted for Population” part of the dataset. The sculpture was already

complete in its simplicity.

Spiraling Corn Production: Reading the Data and Preliminary Conclusions

A preliminary analysis of the adjusted-for-population bushel production dataset shows

irregularities in production over the years. A number of years stand out for remarkably low yield,

including 1934, where production dropped from over 16 bushels of corn per person to just over

9. Small harvests raise questions: was there a drought or some other natural disaster that

adversely impacted the harvest? Did farmers purposely grow less corn because of decreased

prices? Publications from 1934 indicate that an intense drought in the Midwest combined with

the arbitrary curtailment of acreage from the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 drastically

impacted farming yields (Chicago Tribune, 1934). The year 1983 showed a similar drop in the

harvest, and research reveals that a wet, rainy spring season resulted in significant planting

delays and impacted pollination (Thomison and Geyer, 2013). The data used for Spiraling Corn

Production conclusively show that the ratio of bushels per person more than doubled from 20

bushels per person in 1866 to 43 per person in 2013. Seeing inconsistencies with the data while

creating the sculpture helped me make meaning and understand the explosive rate of

monoculture corn production. I achieved my goals with Spiraling Corn Production but wanted to

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have a more inventive, interpretive, and comparative approach with the next data series and

accompanying sculpture.

Design Rationale: High-Fructose Towers

High-Fructose Towers represent a very small slice of data from three non-consecutive

years (Figure 3). Rather than representing a series of annualized datasets, the sculpture shows a

comparative relationship amongst US population, corn sweetener production and individual

consumption of said sweetener. I originally conceived of this design as if it were a pop-up,

constrained to one sheet of paper. After visual analysis, I altered the sculpture by transferring the

elements from the single sheet to a crisscrossed cut ground. Three towers stand vertically from

the flat surface, with separate forms moving up the tower architecture like vines. Each of the

impossibly high towers are stabilized with guy lines that cross over one another. The shifts

within this piece are subtle but noticeable, from the varying heights of each tower, to the number

of concentric rings moving upward, and finally to the amount of amassed corn seeds in front of

each tower. The towers buckle and twist because of their architectural structure, a visual

response to the broken structure of the US food economy.

The swaying architecture, curving organic forms, and narrow line weights of High-

Fructose Towers were in direct response to the compositional elements of Spiraling Corn

Production. I appreciated the visual weight of the curved spiraling grid, but wanted to work with

considerably more delicate and smaller-scale objects. Another design change included

positioning all drawn elements within the edges of one 16” x 12” sheet of paper. Beginning with

the towers, I assigned each triangular cutout a numeric value of 1 million in population. Each

discrete tower represents the total population of the United States for that given year, and rises

accordingly in height to account for changes. For example, in 1980, there was a total population

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of 227 million; in 1999, the population grew to 272 million; and by 2012, the population

increased to 314 million individuals. The third and final tower is appropriately taller than the first

two. Positioned slightly in front of each tower, amassed individual corn seeds represent the

planted acres of corn in millions. These seeds are characterized by a noticeable lack of order,

more like shrubbery and not like organized, straight rows. Because of this organic composition

they reject a simple visual comparison that could be reached by counting. Lifting out from each

mass of corn seeds are concentric radiating rings, each ring equaling two pounds of corn

sweetener consumed by an individual annually.

High-Fructose Towers: Reading the Data and Preliminary Conclusions

I approached this dataset differently than that for Spiraling Corn Production in that I

looked for obvious discrepancies within the data. My search was limited by the availability of

data for corn sugar usage, which is available from 1966 to the present. Within a total of forty-

nine years three were distinctive: 1980, 1999, and 2012 are marked because at least one portion

of the discrete data was unusually high within each information grouping. For example, in 1980,

the number of planted acres was a total of 84 million, a growth of 27% since 1966. Succeeding

years resulted in fewer planted acres until 2012. In 1999, individual consumption of corn

sweeteners reached a record high by more than doubling, as if individuals were laboring to try to

consume all the excessive corn that was harvested by adding more than 49 pounds of the stuff to

their diet. In 2012, 97.3 million acres of corn were planted, but corn sweetener consumption had

tapered off by more than 20 pounds per person to 61 pounds per person.

On a quick first read, the number of planted acres in 1980 indicate a major growth in corn

production. According to research, the expansion of corn cropland is due to expanded use of

genetically modified hybrid corn seed, chemical fertilizers like nitrogen, ammonia anhydride,

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and potassium, and chemical insecticides and herbicides.130 The collected data also shows that

corn sweetener consumption has been on a decline since its record high in 1999, when

Americans were eating almost 85 pounds each. This finding of declining corn sugar consumption

is corroborated in a number of publications discussing how the American population is

consuming considerably less corn sugar.131 As for the high number of acres planted with corn in

2012, unusually warm weather across the Midwestern states in early March and April allowed

for an early start to the planting season (Irwin and Good, 2012).

Design Rationale: Biotech Silo

Biotech Silo plots fifteen consecutive years of data pertaining to genetically modified

corn production (Figure 4). The sculpture is in the form of a raised agricultural grain storage silo,

an element ubiquitous with large-scale agribusiness farming. I decided to build the silo in

response to my own shock at the pervasive use of genetically modified seeds. Data drove the

sculptural form (Figure 16). The sculpture was also made in consideration and response to both

Spiraling Corn Production and High-Fructose Towers. The silo was my first choice of object

because I wanted to make an immediately recognizable form, structurally sound and self-

supporting like the spiral and conspicuously delicate like the towers. This final sculpture also

allowed for a considerable amount of architectural complexity and multiple sheets of paper to

achieve a stratified interior and exterior cylinder. I was interested in returning to annualized,

comparative data representation in order to best show the massive adoption of genetically

engineered corn seed since 2000.

130 Arturo Warman offers critical insight into the industrialized corn farming complex, see Warman, 2003.

131 A number of articles corroborate the numerical data. See: Bjerga, 2013; Sosland, 2014; Welsh et. al.,

2011.

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Annual data is visualized clockwise around the silo and vertically up the walls in two

overlapping layers, which overlays harvested acreage with the percentage of biotech acreage.

The interior cylinder plots the data for harvested acreage. The data is represented as thin

curvilinear rows, growing upward and separated by year. Each vertical column indicates the

number of harvested acres, in millions from 2000 - 2015. For example, in 2013 87.45 million

acres of corn were harvested and in 2014, 83.13 million acres were harvested. The overall

percentage of biotech hybrids is marked numerically upon the overlaid exterior grid, which also

functions as an indicator for millions of acres. The vertical and horizontal grid lines are 1/16” in

width and ⅜” x ⅞” increments. Each vertical increment denotes 50 million acres of corn harvest,

moving vertically from bottom (at zero acres) to top (at 90 million acres). Numerical percentages

associated with data Biotech corn planting is plotted upon the exterior cylinder.

Biotech Silo: Reading the Data and Preliminary Conclusions

The data clearly shows that the overall planted acreage of genetically engineered corn

rose dramatically since 2000, when only 26% of the corn harvest was GMO. By 2013, biotech

corn hybrids were planted in more than 93% of overall US acreage, with the highest number of

acres harvested in the data set, topping out at 87.451 million acres of corn harvested. The data

also shows that corn prices, displayed in dollars per bushel, reached an all-time high in 2012,

with corn reaching a top price of $6.89.

The rise of GMO crops indicates an overall rise in the use of chemical herbicides and

insecticides. Data indicates that while herbicide use on corn dropped for a short time by 42

million pounds (15 percent) between 1998 and 2001, weeds had already developed resistance to

glyphosate because of the overall use of herbicide. Because of the resistance, total herbicide use

then increased by 81.2 million pounds (26%) between 2001 and 2010 and is adversely impacting

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the environment.132 In an early moment of hope, preliminary reports find that farmers are

choosing to plant more GMO-free crops in response to consumer demand.133 Related research

shows that the amount of biotech acreage may plateau, as farmers are receiving higher prices for

organically grown non-GMO corn and are returning to organic corn production (Foreman, 2010).

Hopefully, this trend will continue so that we will see a drop in the use of genetically modified

seeds. Overall corn prices in 2012 were high because of a nationwide drought which negatively

impacted supply (Yousef, 2012). The harvest in 2015 is predicted to be low because of high

rainfall, which will contribute to higher corn grain prices, which will temporarily obscure the

actual difference in value between GMO and organic crops.

Relevance in the Field

A variety of modes of visualizing environmental information are indicative of our

changing perception of our human impact upon the environment. The field of EV ranges from

layered site-specific public art installations to interpretive sculptures to drawings to screen-based

works. This complexity can result from multivariate datasets, but equally as well from abstract

conceptual processes and material choices. All EV artworks use environmental information as

raw material to fuel sculptural, video-based, and static two-dimensional forms that can question

cultural practices. EV can be an interpretative communication of massive amounts of data and

teach us something about our environment, as exemplified with Wind Map. EV can also

communicate a smaller sampling of data and give us insight into an artist’s process, as

132 For a thorough discussion of GMO environmental impact, see Food and Water Watch. 2013; USGS,

2014; Swanson, 2013; Gish et. al., 2011.

133 The tide of GMO is beginning to change course, see: Bunge, 2012.

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demonstrated with Natalie Miebach’s Tides and Poles series. The EV artists and projects

discussed were foundational for my research and creative project. I engaged their precedents

with research-guided decisions. The variety of different approaches shaped the ways in which I

approach data as a material and a driving conceptual framework. Sculpting Corn Production

furthers the field of EV because it goes beyond a two-dimensional, screen-based work to

materialize in three-dimensions environmental data that is related to corn production. The use of

cut and manipulated paper as a sculptural form is a mode of representation new to EV; the

dataset of corn production is also a new contribution, differing from more popular discussions of

energy use, atmospheric conditions, changing weather patterns, and life-cycles of non-human

organisms. However, projects regarding food production, distribution, consumption, and

alternative methods of preparation are becoming more prevalent as we connect our food

requirements with climate change.

Certainly there are a number of quality visualization resources connected to corn

production and interrelated areas of interest, but none are three-dimensional EVs. Extensive two-

dimensional graphs and charts document corn production, relaying farm and economic

information simply in layouts that are all business (Figure 5).134 The material contents of corn are

denoted as well in graphical form, in the elementary “Components of Yellow Dent Corn (Figure

6)135 and in the discursive “Kernel Characteristics” (Figure 7).136 Charles Hornbaker et al.

134 These graphs are produced by the authors of the annual brochure and online data system, World of Corn.

The “US Select Crop Value” graph is a comparison amongst oats, barley, sorghum, wheat, soybeans, and corn for

2013, and projections of total production in 2014. See: NCGA, 2015.

135 Ibid. Yellow dent corn is 62% starch, 19.2% protein and fiber, 15% moisture, and 3.8% oil. Most of the

corn grown in the United States dent corn or a closely related variety derived from it. Dent corn is used in food

manufacturing as the base ingredient for cornmeal flour, corn chips, tortillas and taco shells. Starch derived from

this high-starch content variety is turned into plastics, as well as fructose which is used as a sweetener in many

processed foods and soft drinks. See: Ibid, 2015a.

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created a video visualization in 2014 documenting US crop harvesting data (Figure 8) (2014).

Christian Frankenberg et al. have visualized the first accurate retrievals of chlorophyll

fluorescence from space as an indicator of photosynthetic activity (Figure 9) (2013). Michael

Pecirno created a single subject map regarding corn acreage in the US (Figure 10) (2014).

Flapjack Media visualized changes in the US corn industry (Figure 11) (2013). Cheney and Ellis

visualized corn production in the movie, King Corn (2009). In a different vein, scientists are

studying GMO corn and have textually visualized the dynamic genetic changes in the maize

genome (Figure 12) (Jiao, 2012). Guo Xinyu et al. have constructed a geometric modeling and

visualization of corn (2006). Researchers have successfully sequenced the maize genome for

breeding purposes, and have visualized the ten chromosomes of its genome, showing its

complicated structure and revealing related segments (Figure 13) (NSF, 2009). In the larger

scope of food production, artists like EcoArtTech are working to reestablish a participatory and

imaginative food system, and exhibitions like Foodshed: Agriculture and Art In Action (2015)

are highlighting agricultural practices and artist activism.137

In 2012 I attended a keynote presentation by Nathalie Miebach at the Betascape

conference in Baltimore, where she discussed the fluidity of data as a medium. Miebach believes

that data is a continuously changing material with its own current. Her articulation of these key

aspects of data helped me to reframe my whole approach to the substance of information,

enabling my understanding of that which was germane within the numbers. In this process I

learned how to see in the information what was relevant, which in turn supported my

136 For a primer on corn starch digestibility, see: Mahana, 2015.

137 Foodshed: Agriculture and Art in Action (2015) was an exhibition of upstate/downstate NY artists who

work with food and agriculture. Curated by Amy Lipton, the exhibition featured sustainable agriculture,

entrepreneurship, and artists' use of food as subject matter or medium. See: Lipton, 2014.

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comprehension of the narrative embedded within the data.138 Alphabetized, ordered, tabulated,

numerical data was not a familiar substrate, however, and during the time of collection and

analysis I learned new ways of working. My first response was to gather masses of information,

but even with so many raw materials to work with, I encountered a steep learning curve with

these three sculptures. Everything seemed important, all data was pertinent and interrelated. In

Massive Change, author and designer Bruce Mau expressed, “When everything is connected to

everything else, for better or worse, everything matters” (2004, 129). After I learned how the

data could be parsed I was then able to implement a system of analysis that helped me process it

into form.

Some data was gathered that was not visualized, not because it was not pertinent, but

because I chose to keep the data sets abridged. This choice was both clarified and inspired by

Wind Map because of the work’s aesthetic simplicity and immediate ability to communicate

information. Certain interconnected data was excluded, including annual data from the USDA’s

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs since 1969; historical obesity levels for adults and

children in the US for the same period; water, land, and air pollution data since 2000; soil

erosion information for the same period; annual financial data related to the crop since 1866; fuel

and energy use per acre for crop row production; annual USDA budgets since 2000, and

projected costs for alternative tillage systems. During the course of the research and numerical

comparisons, I found that many of the government-released statements (financial and otherwise)

did not match when cross-referenced. The discrepancies did not interfere with my analysis,

138 In their essay “Relevance Theory,” social and cognitive scientists Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson

discuss that verbal and non-verbal expression and recognition of intentions are essential features of human

communication. They argue that “relevance is a potential property not only of utterances and other observable

phenomena, but of thoughts, memories and conclusions of inferences. In relevance-theoretic terms, any external

stimulus or internal representation which provides an input to cognitive processes may be relevant to an individual at

some time.” See: Wilson and Sperber. 2004.

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however, the data inconsistency did prove one thing: governmental reports may contain incorrect

data. My decision to abridge the dataset differed from Miebach’s process, where data was

layered upon itself until it became visually chaotic. I chose to keep my dataset simple and

minimize the layers of data within each sculpture.

One of the unexpected results of this research is the enabling of my multivariate analysis

of crop data. Though this is not visualized per se in the creative project, ties among networks

have been illuminated that expose causality in patterns and relationships. In Beautiful Evidence,

Tufte articulates that the complex and interesting worlds that we try to understand are essentially

multivariate. This is vital because:

The analysis of cause and effect, initially bivariate, quickly becomes multivariate

through such necessary elaborations as the conditions under which the causal

relations holds, interactions effects, multiple causes, multiple effects, causal

sequences, sources of bias, spurious correlations, sources of measurement error,

competing variables, and whether the alleged cause is merely a proxy of a market

variable (2006, 129).

Close, ongoing reading of these manifold datasets enriched my interpretation of corn production.

The research also led me to understand the breadth of the EV field. Though there are as

many forms of EV as topics that are visualized, there have not as yet been any EV projects on

corn production. Furthermore, there are only a few sculptural EV projects. Sculpting Corn

Production is a point of engagement with the corn production industry in the United States, it

functions as a way for me to understand our devastated monoculture landscapes and the

widespread consumption of refined corn products, and to comprehend the financial structures

that continue to support the production of a product that is expensive in almost every way. The

EV also informs new processes, concept development, and ways of deployment for studio work.

The creative project is a platform for my future work as an artist and scholar.

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Future Research and Creative Works

Not a day has passed without considering the data I collected and how it may be

extrapolated further into new discrete paper sculptures. Sculpting Corn Production was the first

time that I interpreted numerical data into sculptural form and is a benchmark point of transition

for my studio process. I am excited about this direction for my studio process and will continue

to develop food-related sculptural EV and related didactic materials for the specific purpose of

exhibition. I am more comfortable now with corn production datasets, and have a series of new,

more complex datasets. These datasets will incorporate related areas of interest including land

erosion and pollution, petroleum and energy demands / use, and obesity. The future sculptures

informed by these datasets will have a more fluid, interpretive approach to form. While their

form will not be completely decoupled from the data, the structures will be less rigid and

architectural. These sculptures will continue to be delicate, layered paper forms and a personal

examination of the corn-production industry. I also plan on developing a series of related

didactic materials consisting of text for a deeper understanding of the data and the sculptural

interpretation. After these new EV sculptures and their accompanying didactics are completed, I

will work to exhibit Sculpting Corn Production in a gallery setting.

Because of this foundational data-intensive research, my creative works are diverging to

new areas of research and production. Data interpretation will play a key role in these

developments and has evolved into a series of new projects concerned with power consumption,

the generation and transduction of energy, and the infrastructure of energy landscapes. The

future of my research and creative process are informed by EV work and research.

Through the research and the creative project I learned how to collect data, understand

and translate information into form, look for relevancy and meaning within the data. Sculpting

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Corn Production is foundational, and moves beyond the type of information, the process of

visualizing data, and the mode of representation. One of the most important takeaways from the

combined research and creative project is my adoption of a research methodology, which has

changed the ways in which I work. From numerical data collection, to understanding the prior

research in a chosen area, to the deployment of concepts into physical form, I am working

toward being thorough and sensitive with the chosen project, as discussed in the following two

sections. The other important change in my practice is the change in the type of questions I ask,

informed by Jeremijenko’s artistic process of questioning:

All I do is ask questions: “How can I use this to do this?” or “How can we

improve water quality?” Asking good questions is a fundamental skill and I would

argue that it’s the way to cut through a lot of disciplinary divides. Intellectuals I

admire have just asked generally interesting questions. It’s something you

develop over years and years and years and I’m hoping to move towards mastery

of this skill to ask questions clearly and simply (Substratum, 2013).

I will continue to ask more sensitive, informed, and interesting questions in my future work, and

I, too, see the development of asking good questions as a lifelong goal. Asking good questions

supports data fluency and moves beyond data visualization and into action.

EV supports comprehension and ecological awareness. Jeremijenko articulates how her

artistic practice transformed from visualization into legible, interpretive forms and

representations. These forms are varied, wherein data can be used for positive ecological change:

I’m not really interested in data literacy or even the politics of data anymore. I’m

interested in fluency: being able to use the data to really act and change the world

and to know that – even within this context of irreducibly complex socio-

ecological systems – there’s always incomplete information…It’s not just about

beautiful visualizations, it’s about how that couples into producing viable, doable

actions that can aggregate into real systems change (Substratum, 2011).

For my future studio work and research, I am interested in transformative work that includes

both beautiful visualizations and doable actions for environmental support. While I understand

Jeremijenko’s conceptual move from beauty, I am interested in artwork that will reach a broad

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audience on an aesthetic level. I also look to the methodologies of strategic design for changing

the way we engage ecology in urban areas.

Collaborative Practice

My studio practice has evolved since beginning my studies at Virginia Commonwealth

University in 2007. One significant change is that my practice has expanded to become

collaborative - a change that began in 2008 when I started working with others to realize

projects. After completing the MATX coursework, I participated in a series of artist residencies

across the country. It was during this time in 2009 that I met my longtime collaborator, Matthew

McCormack during a residency where we were making public sculpture with reclaimed

materials. We recognized mutual interests in energy, technology, and our environment. Together

we investigate the connections between ecology, industry, science and identity. Since 2009 we

have been working together in all aspects of concept and production in regards to studio research

and creative works, with the exception of my dissertation research and creative project.

However, the following discussion of Kinetic Light Instruments and Desert Crickets are projects

conceived and produced in collaboration with McCormack.

Ongoing Project: Kinetic Light Instruments

Kinetic Light Instruments is interdisciplinary and unites the fields of artistic and technical

research, arranged performance, public installation, and social interaction. These instruments

include a series of drums, and more recently, rattles. Related to EV through the use of sensors

and related technology, the drums respond to energy input via a transducer. They light up when

played without the use of batteries or any external power. These sensitive kinetic light

instruments merge technology with the material of light and sound, adding the dimension of light

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to physical movement and percussive acoustics. The instruments are user-powered. When they

are played - banged, hit, tapped, shaken, and turned over - the vibrations create electricity. The

generated energy powers ultra bright LEDs, which light up with every movement. To this end,

we are researching materials and devices that transform vibrational energy into electrical power.

The drums use speaker transducers, and the rattle instruments use piezo-electric technology in

tandem with custom wiring harnesses to create energy.

The overarching goal is twofold. The research includes developing permanent and semi-

permanent sculptural installations of Kinetic Light Instruments and future kinetic light objects.

These objects are currently for public interaction and performance, and will be for future

environmental installation. They are at their core about renewable and generative energy sources.

The drums are percussion instruments that are designed to withstand the elements and intense

human interaction while displaying unique and sensitive light patterns intimately connected to

human movement. In our findings, we have learned that in order to achieve maximum luminosity

and best aural resonance with any drumhead, the interior of the drum needs to be shaped / tuned

properly to the resonant frequencies of the transducer and the shell. The kinetic rattles project

commenced as a result of our preliminary research into the drums. The Kinetic Light Rattles are

complex forms, requiring an understanding of piezo mechanics, interior structural solutions as

they relate to industrial manufacturing and to human motion, and the mechanics of light

diffusion. Our first rattles were 6’ long performance art objects created specifically for dancers.

Extreme use in Step Afrika!’s rehearsal and performances revealed key weaknesses in our

design. We rebuilt the rattles, taking into account several of the observations. Since then, smaller

interpretations of this instrument have been developed. This is due, in part, to end-user demand

for hand-held performance objects constructed on a small scale.

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Kinetic Light Instruments significantly further the fields of percussive, interactive light

sculpture because the light and sound are human-generated, making the correlation between

movement and sound visible. Kinetic Light Instruments are also one of the first user-powered

electromechanical kinesthetic instruments that can be packaged for the public and have the

potential to be created in more dynamic physical forms for public performance. Other

contemporary exertion instrument projects use light and sound in concert with piezo-electric

technology in unusual ways but are unnecessarily complex (Qi, 2011). Piezo-electric

implementation is also applied specifically for stringed instruments (Matthews, M. 1989;

Fishman, L. 1993; Takabayashi, Y., 2008). There is a long history of the correlation with

synesthesia and between light, sound, and optics (Hertz, P. 1999; Olivier, D. 2010; Manning, P.

2012; Garro, D. 2012). Kinetic Light Instruments are informed by the 20th century synesthetes,

such as Wassily Kandinsky and Alexander Scriabin, who sought to create an imagined "visual

music," an ideal synthesis of music and visual art, with human-generated power.

Our research combines known formulas in piezo-electric energy harvesting, without any

storage. The understanding of piezo-electric generation is well documented (Mitcheson, P., T.

Green, E. Yeatman, and A. Holmes, 2004; Anton, S. and H. Sodano, 2007; Hanlon, M. 2008;

Garvey, J. 2010; Piezo Systems, 2013). Our use of LEDs and analog circuitry also relate to

emerging technology. Our instruments feature the brightest and lowest power LEDs and the most

efficient diode rectifiers currently available on the consumer market. Our design work is

increasingly done in CAD, specifically in SolidWorks, and we have learned from recent

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conversations with industrial manufacturers that we need to develop these instruments with

circuit boards and pick-and-place industry technology.139

In 2014 we were commissioned to build a series of kinetic light drums and step platforms

for Step Afrika!’s Green is the New Black performance in Washington, D.C., and Houston,

Texas. We designed, tested, and built the first energy harvesting platforms specifically for

contemporary step dancing. Fully designed in Solidworks CAD, the platforms featured

acoustically tuned cavities and horn guides that strongly coupled the movement from the birch

plywood dance surface to the Eminence transducers. Our prototype was chosen over several

established generative floor solution providers because of cost and performance. The harvested

energy powered a series of onstage luminaries.

The collaboration with Step Afrika! is extremely fruitful and has led to two collaborative

research explorations. The first is with Dr. Jaret Riddick from the U.S. Army Research

Laboratory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Together we will be authoring a white paper for

publication regarding energy generation technology and its impact on the arts and culture in the

U.S., and its potential overseas. The second is with Dr. Christopher D. Meyer with the Sensors &

Electron Devices Directorate at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in Adelphi, who is offering

technical engineering support for a series of connected transducers, resulting in increased energy

generation.

The research and production for Kinetic Light Instruments, and specifically the step

dancing platforms, are foundational for a future EV project, tentatively titled Rain Pool. At this

139 SMT (surface mount technology) component placement systems, commonly called pick-and-place

machines or P&Ps, are robotic machines which are used to place surface-mount devices (SMDs) onto a printed

circuit board (PCB). They are used for high speed, high precision placing of broad range of electronic components,

like capacitors, resistors, integrated circuits onto the PCBs which are in turn used in computers, consumer

electronics as well as industrial, medical, automotive, military and telecommunications equipment. See: Jacobsen-

Weaver and Eisenberg, 2015.

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stage, Rain Pool is purely a conceptual environmental project, but we are developing the

knowledge, tools, and equipment with Kinetic Light Instruments to enable the creation of the

sculptures. Rain Pool is a series of responsive light sculptures that will transmit information

about fluctuating rainfall, including the frequency and scale of the raindrops. The interior

mechanism may rely upon an accelerometer to detect the subtle input of the rainfall, use LED

lights for illumination, and require an external power source, such as a solar panel and energy

storage system. Each sculpture will be a touch-sensitive waterless “pool” installed outdoors. The

forms will take shape as smooth white puddles. Embedded in the landscape, these pools will

react by illuminating when rained upon, brightly glowing as the rainfall increases and fading as

the frequency decreases. As an installation, the work will consist of three or more glowing

“pools” that visually transmit immediate rainfall information with softly glowing light. They

may also function as remotely sensing databanks, collecting data on localized areas of rainfall

that could be employed for evaluative purposes.

Future EV Project: Desert Cricket

One new EV project is the Desert Cricket, a series of objects that visually transmit

environmental data inspired by the random blinking of fireflies and the melodious chirping of

crickets. The Desert Cricket is a series of environmentally powered and visually responsive

sculptures that will transmit information about changing atmospheric temperature through the

transformation of energy into light for installation in an outdoor environment. Inspired by the

flickering of fireflies and the singing of crickets in the evening, the project combines a firefly’s

light production with a cricket’s chirping. The Desert Cricket will blink and fade an LED in

correlation to the temperature in order to mimic the behavioral chirping of actual crickets. As the

atmospheric temperature rises, the LED light will blink faster or have a longer fade between off-

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times. As an environmental installation, the work will consist of hundreds of flickering devices

within the desert landscape, an electro - technological proxy for the phenomenology of two

different biological organisms.

Fireflies and crickets have a series of biological traits defining their behavior. The

bioluminescence of fireflies, or Lampyridae, is well documented,140 a phenomenon controlled by

the release of oxygen within the organism. What humans see as randomized blinking is actually

luminescence triggered for a number of reasons, including larval glow indicating the presence of

a defensive steroid and the unique flash patterns identifying species and members of the opposite

sex. The cricket is a living thermometer made evident by its calling song. Its chirping comes in a

variety of styles announcing a mating call, a triumphal song after mating, and an aggressive song

to repel other nearby males. The speed and frequency of the cricket chirp is termed Dolbear’s

Law, which is the relationship of temperature and rate of chirping (Dolbear, 87).

Though not all visual aspects have been outlined, the Desert Cricket is a sculpture that

will visualize environmental data by blinking a LED projected with a Fresnel lens. A Peltier

device or a solar panel will provide power. I will research heat syncs, thermal transfer equations,

power storage issues, and microprocessor control for the sculpture. With thoughtful design, a

Peltier device would yield enough output to power a device through the night. The temperature

relationship to the pulsing light may be related to thermal characteristics of charge storage

components instead of a separate resistive thermometer. Other research questions include the

following technical concerns: Can thermoelectric generators be used to power discrete LED

devices in remote installations? Will microcontrollers or analog circuitry more efficiently control

140 For a simple overview documenting firefly bioluminescence, see: Branham, 2005.

For an in-depth review of bioluminescence, see: Branchini et. al., 2015; Branchini, 2013; Seliger and

McElroy, 1960.

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the device? I will need to calculate the potential energy gains for 12 hours of power, including

comparing the energy needed with the energy generation possible from a thermoelectric material.

One decision also includes going with either thermal or solar power. The final form of the object

will be based on material availability, budget, and concept. Finally the last thing to consider is

what other environmental information could be visualized with this sculptural form.

I hypothesize that the Desert Cricket will be a beautiful, functional object and contribute

to knowledge generation in the field of EV. The sculpture will contribute new knowledge in

distributed energy production and remote sensing, and could function as an environmental data

collector for evaluative purposes. In this way, it could be installed in other locations, recording

and transmitting data for a dynamic visualization website, extending the life and reach of each

individual object. The Desert Cricket could also be designed for household use and a successful

environmental installation en masse.

Conclusion

My creative project, Sculpting Corn Production, exemplifies the broadened definition of

EV through its mode of representation. Sculpting Corn Production was in part a personal

exploration of the corn industry because of my feelings of environmental distress from the

negative impacts of monoculture farming. The series includes three discrete sculptures and

separate datasets using information from the USDA from 1866 to the present, including farming

Business Reports; Feed Grains Yearbooks Summary of Business, Yearbook Tables, and Feed

Grains Database; Agricultural Projections to 2024; and granular data relating to corn in costs and

returns. Data was collected regarding the main issues surrounding industrial corn production and

processing contextualized the numerical information, including the impact of ethanol subsidies

on global corn production, the contribution of processed corn to nutrition and nationwide obesity

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levels, data on USDA nutrition programs, environmental degradation due to chemical usage, and

the evolution of corn including genome-wide changes during the breeding of maize.

Spiraling Corn Production visualizes 150 years of data of corn production in relationship

to population growth. A preliminary analysis of the adjusted-for-population bushel production

dataset shows irregularities in production over the years, and that the ratio of bushels per person

more than doubled from 20 bushels per person in 1866 to 43 per person in 2013. High-Fructose

Towers used a comparative approach with the next data series and accompanying sculpture,

visualizing corn sugar usage data from 1966 to the present. Within a total of forty-nine years

three were distinctive, including 1980, 1999, and 2012. Corn sweetener consumption has been on

a decline since its record high in 1999, when Americans were eating almost 85 pounds each.

Biotech Silo plots fifteen consecutive years of data pertaining to genetically modified corn

production, and was a return to annualized, comparative data representation to show the massive

adoption of genetically engineered corn seed since 2000. By 2013, biotech corn hybrids were

planted in more than 93% of overall US acreage, the year after the price per bushel reached an

all-time high. The rise of GMO crops indicate an overall rise in the use of chemical herbicides

and insecticides, but preliminary reports find that farmers are choosing to plant more GMO-free

crops in response to consumer demand.

Sculpting Corn Production furthers the field of EV because it goes beyond a two-

dimensional, screen-based work to materialize in three-dimensions environmental data that is

related to corn production. The use of cut and manipulated paper as a sculptural form is a mode

of representation new to EV; the dataset of corn production is also a new contribution, differing

from more popular discussions of energy use, atmospheric conditions, changing weather

patterns, and life-cycles of non-human organisms.

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The research and creative project informs new processes, concept development, ways of

deployment for studio work, and most importantly, the adoption of a research methodology.

Through this process I understand the importance of personal expression in data-interpretive EV

in order to create beautiful and transformative works. The creative project is a platform for my

future work as an artist and scholar, informing my studio process which is diverging to new areas

of research and production. These future works will be data interpretations and visualizations, a

series of new projects concerned with environmental visualization, power consumption, the

generation and transduction of energy, and the infrastructure of energy landscapes.

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Conclusion

This dissertation, Expanding Eco-Visualization: Sculpting Corn Production, connects my

pursuits in contemporary art, data visualization, and ecology. My research primarily investigated

eco-visualization artwork which is a relatively new field dominated by concerns related to

ecological crises. Eco-visualization (EV) is a subset of information visualization that concerns

itself with visualizing data regarding the environment. EV was originally defined in 2006 as a

way to display the real time consumption statistics of key environmental resources for the goal

of promoting ecological literacy. Later EV definitions suggested that EV could be site-specific,

controlled by a computer or associated electronic technology. I assert that the final form of eco-

visualization artworks are not necessarily dependent on technology, and that in fact, the small

amount of literature on the subject is too limiting in its definition. EV artworks can differ in

terms of media used, in that they can be sculptural, video-based, or static two-dimensional forms

that communicate this environmental information. They are creative interpretations of

information that visually reveal statistical data and the effects of political and socio-spatial

systems upon the environment. EVs are political acts, situated in a particularly charged climate

of rising awareness and human accountability, acknowledging that changing ecologies are not

phenomena safe from human exploitation and intervention. EVs can work collectively to change

attitudes toward the environment for a positive shared future.

EV operates within the larger context of environmentalism, an attempt to balance

relations amongst humans and the natural systems on which they depend in order to maintain

sustainability, now and in the future. Figuring predominantly in the broader discourse about the

environment is the practice of environmental ethics, the pursuit of biodiversity support, and ways

to achieve ecological balance. This eco-centric behavior depends on an individual person’s

150

awareness of the effects of human action, including energy consumption, land-use practices, and

strategies (including the lack thereof) for dealing with atmospheric pollution. My personal

experience of solastalgia carried through and informed my process during the research and

creative project. This phenomenon is a documented form of psychic distress resulting from

negatively perceived environmental change. However, EV art can work to heal psychoterratic

illness. Albrecht contends that

The defeat of solastalgia and non-sustainability will require that all of our

emotional, intellectual and practical efforts be redirected towards healing the rift

that has occurred between ecosystem and human health...the full transdisciplinary

idea of health involves the healing of solastalgia via cultural responses to

degradation of the environment in the form of drama, art, dance and song at all

scales of living from the bioregional to the global (59).

However strong my own feeling of solastalgia, I remain hopeful for a positive shift in social

practice and behavior through the creative strategies of cultural engagement.

I offer a broadened definition of EV, through an overview of important areas of overlap

and difference in eco-visualization: structural issues, including the content type of data sets both

dynamic and static; and media both digital and non-digital; functional issues, including

approaches to form; and aesthetic issues, including visuality, site-specificity, and the ways in

which eco-visualization may offer a critique of contemporary cultural practices. Within this

context, two categories of EV emerge: one that is predominantly screen-based, and another that

employs a variety of modes of representation to visualize environmental information. The second

category is indicative of our changing perception of the human impact upon the environment and

ecology. Screen-based works are discussed in Chapter One, and works beyond the screen in

Chapter Two. The complexity of EV work can result from multiple, simultaneous datasets and

abstract conceptual processes.

151

The first category of EV work includes dynamic projects that rely on the screen. I discuss

EcoArtTech’s Eclipse and Deverell’s Building Run. These projects are relevant because they are

interpretations of streaming, dynamic data that also allow the audience opportunity for

interpretation and analysis through technological mediation. I chose these projects because of

their varied compositional choices and the ways they engage sensing and technology. Eclipse is

an online EV that harnesses the information sharing of the web. By translating current air-quality

in US national parks, the web application allows viewers to see the effects of pollution imposed

upon shared images of nature. Eclipse seeks to engage audiences removed from the actual

experience through technological mediation. Building Run was a real-time video installation that

conceptualized five buildings as competing athletes in a daily race for greater energy efficiency.

The project documented real-time energy consumption using human avatars to represent each

building, each running to beat its own personal best.

The second category of EV work includes projects that do not rely on the screen but use a

variety of materials and processes for the final presentation. I discuss Polli’s Cloud Car and

Particle Falls; Miebach’s series, The Sandy Rides; and Natalie Jeremijenko’s Mussel Choir.

Cloud Car is a site-specific EV employing static data that shows the direct connection between

the automobile and air quality. The car is fitted with equipment that produces a cloud of mist,

enveloping car and rider to make air tangible and visible. The second work, Particle Falls, is a

large-scale projection driven by dynamic air quality data collected with a nephelometer.

Resembling a waterfall, the blue light projection is disrupted with orange burst of light as air

pollution is detected, giving the viewer immediate feedback. The Sandy Rides translates data

related to Hurricane Sandy by employing basket weaving as a grid, upon which data is layered

and interwoven in three-dimensional space. Miebach’s The Sandy Rides expands how scientific

152

data may be visually translated beyond graphs and diagrams into chaotic and playful sculptures.

Visual complexity is explored through EV works like O Fortuna, Sandy Spins, The Last Ride,

and The Ride in order to question our cultural fascination with delicate coastal ecosystems and

our tendency to ignore climate change. Mussel Choir is a bio-sensing EV artwork that aims to

engage the public on water quality and the unseen complexities of urban ecology. Consisting of a

live colony of a native species of mussels, the artwork monitors the water filtration activities of

these organisms and converts this data into sound, which is available for passersby who can

listen to the mussel choir in situ. Mussel Choir is an example of an eco-visualization that uses a

dynamic data set and variety of media to communicate in real time, creating a bridge between

humans and aquatic organisms.

The future of EV is transforming as its forms become more complex. Screen-based EV

works remain prevalent, and are being deployed in ways that have the potential to stimulate

change. They signal the future of EV as strategic design, transforming and shaping policy

frameworks, culture, and governance in the process of their production. Future EV works require

holistic frameworks, collaboration, and synthesis in prototyping ideas. The systems of policy,

culture, and governance will have to work together to create both visualizations and actions to

improve the environment and change our collective approach to resources on land, in water, and

in the air. Future large-scale EV works like Global Fishing Watch are possible as corporations

collaborate to collect global data.141 Governments, federal agencies, and other global entities are

also creating EV, exemplified by the White House’s Climate Data Initiative web application that

141 Global Fishing Watch analyzes massive amounts of satellite data to create a global view of commercial

fishing. The public version will give citizens a free, global online platform to visualize, track and share information

about fishing activity worldwide. The EV exposes illegal practices, and shows what is at stake for the ocean. The

combination of cloud computing and massive data is enabling new tools to visualize, understand and potentially

reverse harmful practices. See: Global Fishing Watch, 2014.

153

will visualize climate change.142 Large-scale EV projects like Global Fishing Watch and Climate

Data Initiative are indicative of a cultural acceptance that our environment is changing and the

widespread acknowledgement that we need to take action. In the face of climate crisis we are

working together to make positive change.

The range of current EV practice provided models for my creative project, and provided a

foundation from which I developed a creative methodology. EV is a new direction for my studio

work, though I have long been interested in the visualization of hidden environmental

information. My creative project, Sculpting Corn Production, is a series of discrete paper

sculptures focusing on American corn monoculture farming as a way to engage the climate. The

work exemplifies the concepts and information regarding EV artwork as explored in the research

investigation in a number of ways, including the strategies and functions as discussed in the

Introduction. The creative project was a way for me to attempt to defeat my feelings of

solastalgia. Though the research and creative project did not achieve that result, they helped me

to understand how working toward a shared cultural environmentalism and sustainable practices

will require that all of our emotional, intellectual and practical efforts be directed towards

healing ecosystem and human health.

The creative project also presented an opportunity to engage with specific datasets in a

physical and visual manner and to demonstrate the broadened definition of EV set forth in the

research investigation. For instance, my chosen imagery was driven by predetermined static data

142 The US Government is launching a Climate Data Initiative to demonstrate real-world risks of global

warming. Data will be made available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA, the U.S.

Geological Survey, the Department of Defense, and other federal agencies. The first batch of climate data released

will focus on coastal flooding and sea-level rise. The first version of the application will not present data visually in

ways that are comprehensible to the public. The government is reaching out to researchers and developers to create

data-driven simulations. See: Howard, 2014.

154

sets provided by US Department of Agriculture resources and created with a sense of interpretive

complexity. Though the visual elements were guided by data, the resulting imagery underwent

an uncoupling of shape from information and is abstract – ultimately its logic may only be

available to me. The EV is a point of engagement with the corn industry in the United States; it

functions as a way for me to understand our devastated monoculture landscapes and the politics,

economics, and related areas of ecology of our food production. Sculpting Corn Production is a

foundation for future work through the development of concept, the exploration of process, the

interpretation / translation of data, and the deployment of information through form.

The research and creative project have been instrumental in the development of new

research methodologies, including how to collect data, understand and translate information into

form, and look for relevancy and meaning within the data. Sculpting Corn Production was

foundational for my understanding of the process of visualizing data and choosing a mode of

representation. For my future creative research, I am interested in transformative EV works that

are beautiful visualizations in tandem with doable actions for environmental support. I look to

the methodologies of strategic design for changing the way we engage ecology in urban areas,

and will continue to ask informed, sensitive, and interesting questions.

155

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content/uploads/ASLE_Photos_Nadir_MicrobialSelfies.jpg.

Figure 4. 2015. Microbial Selfies Interface at CR10 Contemporary Arts Project Space, Hudson

Valley. EcoArtTech. Accessed 9/2015 from: http://www.ecoarttech.net/dir/wp-

content/uploads/2014/12/Microbial_Selfies_900.jpg.

Figure 5. 2008. Eclipse. EcoArtTech. Accessed 9/2015 from: http://www.ecoarttech.net/dir/wp-

content/uploads/2012/09/eclipse_700px_0043_Layer-2.jpg.

Figure 6. 2014. Building Run. Keith Deverell. Accessed 9/2015 from: http://carbonarts.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/07/1JHP8103.jpg.

Figure 7. 2014. Building Run Promotional Materials. Carbon Arts.

Preliminary design layout. Accessed 8/2015 from: http://carbonarts.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/07/Building-Run-brochure.pdf.

Chapter Two: Multi-Modal Eco-Visualizations

Figure 1. 2015. PM 2.5. EPA. Accessed 7/2015 from:

http://www.epa.gov/pm/graphics/pm2_5_graphic.jpg.

Figure 2. 2014. Environmental Performance Index. EPA. Accessed 7/2015 from:

http://www.epa.gov/pm/graphics/pm2_5_graphic.jpg.

Figure 3. 2008. Cloud Car. Andrea Polli. Accessed 7/2015 from:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreapolli/3777728837/in/album-72157608296802934/.

Figure 4. 2012. Cloud Car. Andrea Polli. Accessed 7/2015 from: http://www.artkernel.com/wp-

content/uploads/2011/11/polli.jpg.

Figure 5. 2009. Cloud Car. Andrea Polli. Accessed 7/2015 from:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreapolli/3777687297/in/album-72157608296802934/.

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Figure 6. 2009. Cloud Car. Andrea Polli. Accessed 7/2015 from:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreapolli/3729518417/in/album-72157608296802934/.

Figure 7. 2009. Cloud Car. Andrea Polli. Accessed 7/2015 from:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreapolli/3729606133/in/album-72157608296802934/.

Figure 8. 2015. Particle Falls. Andrea Polli. Accessed 8/2015 from: http://hyperallergic.com/wp-

content/uploads/2015/02/particlefalls1.jpg.

Figure 9. 2009. Nephelometer. Andrea Polli. Accessed 8/2015 from:

http://d27g5niyie9o3z.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/Nephelometer.jpg.

Figure 10. 2014. Particle Falls. Andrea Polli. 2014. Accessed 8/2015 from:

http://d27g5niyie9o3z.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/styles/carousel/public/media/PF-test-

photoshop-1_0.jpg?itok=YyKRGLhV.

Figure 11. 2015. Statewide Average Temperature Ranks. National Climate Data Center.

Accessed 8/2015 from:

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/national/statewidetavgrank/201502.gif.

Figure 12. 2012. Hurricane Sandy, October 28, 2012. NASA. Accessed 7/2015 from:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Sandy_Oct_28_2012_1555Z.jpg.

Figure 13. 2012. Track of Hurricane Sandy. Accessed 8/2015 from:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Sandy_2012_track.png.

Figure 14. 2012. Toppled Seaside Heights Rollercoaster. Mario Tama, Getty Images. Accessed

8/2015 from: http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/50afb4796bb3f7e508000016/seaside-

heights-roller-coaster-nj-toppled-roller-coaster-hurricane-sandy.jpg.

Figure 15. 2012. O Fortuna, Sandy Spins. Nathalie Miebach. Accessed 7/2015 from:

http://burnaway.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Miebach.jpeg.

Figure 16. 2012. The Last Ride. Nathalie Miebach. Accessed 7/2015 from: http://kunstnetz-

international.de/uploads/thumbnail800/38f3860d2a309d8acc0c4a29ee90c4311378422890.jpg.

Figure 17. 2012. The Ride. Nathalie Miebach. (2015). Accessed 7/2015 from:

http://nathaliemiebach.com/sandy07.html.

Figure 18. 2012. Bounty. U.S. Coast Guard. Accessed 7/2015 from:

http://www.outsideonline.com/sites/default/files/styles/three-quarter-page-scaled-

1x/public/migrated-images/bounty_fe.jpg?itok=g_QWlvta.

Figure 19. 2009-2010. Navigating Into a New Night and Musical Buoy in Search Towards a New

Shore. Nathalie Miebach. Accessed 7/2015 from: http://www.kunstnetz-

international.de/uploads/thumbnail800/15b5cd03fec344177cbd3181c8c2fb5c1378422440.jpg.

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Figure 20. 2012. Sewage Spill from Hurricane Sandy. Climate Central. Photo courtesy of Doug

Kuntz. Accessed 7/2015 from: http://savethegreatsouthbay.org/wp-

content/uploads/2013/04/Sewage.pdf.

Figure 21. 2015. TREExOFFICE. Natalie Jeremijenko.

A collaboration with artists Shuser + Mosley, the engineer Tim Lucas from Price and Myers, and

the architecture firm Tate Harmer. Accessed 7/2015 from: http://tateharmer.com/wp-

content/uploads/2015/05/KILO-0174-0006-copy.jpg.

Figure 22. 2012. Venice Mussel Choir, documentation. Natalie Jeremijenko, Mark Shepard,

David Benjamin. Accessed 7/2015 from: http://ap.buffalo.edu/content/shared/ap/students-

faculty-

alumni/perspectives/serendipity/_jcr_content/par/image.img.680.auto.jpg/1367001100484.jpg.

Figure 23. Upcoming, 2015. Mussel Choir, concept drawing. Natalie Jeremijenko. Accessed

7/2015 from: http://gfxspeak.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Pier-35-EcoPark1-

e1405106328404.jpg.

Figure 24. 2015. Melbourne Mussel Choir. Natalie Jeremijenko.

Accessed 8/2015 from: http://carbonarts.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/web-for-mussel.png.

Figure 25. Littoral Zone. Accessed 7/2015 from:

http://www.lakeaccess.org/ecology/art/lakezones.gif.

Figure 26. 2014. Mussel Choir, Input & Output. Natalie Jeremijenko.

Screen capture, accessed 7/2015 from: https://vimeo.com/47484655, 2:37.

Chapter Three: Sculpting Corn Production

Figure 1. 2015. Spiraling Corn Production. Figg. Accessed 8/2015 from: www.mccfigg.com.

Figure 2. 2015. Spiraling Corn Production, detail. Figg. Accessed 8/2015 from:

www.mccfigg.com.

Figure 3. 2015. High-Fructose Towers. Figg. Accessed 8/2015 from: www.mccfigg.com.

Figure 4. 2015. Biotech Silo. Figg. Accessed 8/2015 from: www.mccfigg.com.

Figure 5. 2015. U.S. Select Crop Value. World of Corn.

Figure 6. 2015. Components of Yellow Dent Corn. World of Corn.

Figure 7. 2015. Kernel Characteristics, Corn Starch. Bill Mahana. Accessed 8/2015 from:

https://www.pioneer.com/home/site/us/silage-zone/corn_silage_feed/digest-corn-starch1/.

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Figure 8. 2014. A Century of Corn. Charles Hornbaker, J. Benjamin Cook, Conor Myhrvold,

Ryan King. Accessed 8/2015 from: https://vimeo.com/93526035.

Figure 9. 2014. Photosynthesis from Space. Christian Frankenberg et al. Accessed 8/2015 from:

http://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/grawk-earth-photosynthesis-crop.jpg.

Figure 10. 2014. Corn. Michael Pecirno. Accessed 8/2015 from:

http://i0.wp.com/www.visualnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Michael-Pecirno-

Minimalist-Maps-corn.jpeg.

Figure 11. 2013. Changes in the US Corn Industry. Flapjack Media. Accessed 8/2015 from:

https://flapjackmedia.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2013-08-corn-web.jpg.

Figure 12. 2012. Neighbor-joining tree of the 126 US maize inbred lines. Yinping Jiao, Hainan

Zhao, Longhui Ren, Weibin Song, Biao Zeng, Jinjie Guo, Baobao Wang, Zhipeng Liu, Jing

Chen, Wei Li, Mei Zhang, Shaojun Xie & Jinsheng Lai. Accessed 8/2015 from:

http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v44/n7/images/ng.2312-F2.jpg.

Figure 13. 2009. Corn Genome 1. National Science Foundation. Accessed 6/2015 from:

http://www.nsf.gov/news/mmg/media/images/corn_genome1_h.jpg.

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Vita

Jennifer Erica Figg was born on June 23, 1974 in Fresno County, California, and is an American

citizen. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textiles from the Rhode Island School of

Design in 1996, and received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California at Santa

Barbara in 2007. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at Towson University, in Towson,

Maryland.

Selected exhibitions include Light City, Baltimore, Maryland; Green is the New Black with Step

Afrika!, Washington, DC; Dlectricity in Detroit, Michigan; The Art House at the Jones Center in

Austin, Texas; the Gund Gallery at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; the Arlington Art Center in

Arlington, Virginia; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Virginia Beach, Virginia; the

Columbus Center for Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio; The Print Center in Philadelphia,

Pennsylvania; the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio; the National Museum of Glass in

Eskisehir, Turkey; and Project4 Gallery in Washington, DC.

Selected awards and residencies include the School of Emerging Technology Seed Funding

Grant, Towson University, Maryland; the Great Lakes College Association New Directions

Initiative, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; the Brython Davis Endowment Graduate Fellowship,

Santa Barbara, California; the Toolmaker Residency at Signal Culture, Owego, New York; the

Mesaros Visiting Artist at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; the Lower Manhattan Cultural

Council Artist Residency, New York, New York, and the MacDowell Colony Artist Residency,

Peterborough, New Hampshire.

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