Hello Everyone,
Sara Diamond, the president of OCAD University, will be visiting the DGP
next Wednesday (Jan 17), following her TUX talk on Tuesday. I'll be
arranging demos for her throughout the day. Please let me know if you'd
like to arrange a meeting. This is a great opportunity to show off your
work!
Abstract
I side-stepped into data visualization two decades ago, as an artist trying
to answer a series of related questions about IRC chat that had arisen for
me as a user and through my dialogues with other users, “Why can’t IRC chat
be more dynamic, less linear, relational? How can we manage flaming,
lurking and other behaviors that discourage users? What strategies, like
play, might resolve conflicts?” Over a number of years I led the creation
of the CodeZebraOS which was a playful, non-linear visual chat environment
that applied basic affective computing to text analytics. Now a decade
later I lead the Visual Analytics Laboratory at OCAD University – a group
of researchers who are committed to bringing together visualization design
and data analytics. Times have changed and with them the recognition that
big data requires analytics tools to be usable. Visualization systems are
built into many software packages and info graphics are everyday fare. The
Visual Analytics Laboratory works in partnership with data owners and
sources, some with their own analytics capacities, others who rely on the
VAL to analyze as well as represent the data. Over the course of the
lecture I will present a glimpse of my early work and provide a history of
VAL projects, addressing differing strategies for making meaning from
data. Projects include public displays of data, artistic data
presentations, media analytics, urban planning, public data analytics,
social media analytics, etc. Researchers in the VAL also raise questions
about the use of data and the need for critical literacy regarding data
sources and visualizations.
Bio
Dr. Sara Diamond is the President of OCAD University, Canada’s, “University
of the Imagination”. She holds a PhD in Computing, Information Technology
and Engineering, a Masters in Digital Media and Honours Bachelors of Arts
in History and Communications. She is an appointee of the Order of Ontario
and the Royal Canadian Academy of Artists and a recipient of the Queen’s
Diamond Jubilee Medal for service to Canada. She is the winner of the 2013
GRAND NCE Digital Media Pioneer Award, recognized as one of Toronto Life’s
Top Fifty and. she is a Senior Fellow at Massey College, University of
Toronto. She was recently honored as one of Canada’s 150 leading women.
Since her appointment in 2005 she has led OCAD University’s evolution to a
full university, helping to build its transdisciplinary and
research-creation research capacity and infrastructure, integrate STEM
subjects, create its Digital Futures Initiative, launch the Indigenous
Visual Culture Program, strengthen its approach to inclusion, and grow its
undergraduate and graduate programs in studio art and design. Diamond is a
researcher in media arts history and policy, visual analytics and has
created wearable technologies, mobile experiences and media art. Diamond
was honoured with a 1992 retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada,
represented Canada in festivals and biennials, and her works reside in
collections such as the MoMA in New York City, National Gallery of Canada
and Vancouver Art Gallery.
