Friday 28 February 2014

Data Visualisation: Beautiful Science



Exhibition at The British Library
20 February - 26 May 2014
The Folio Society Gallery; admission free
Turning numbers into pictures that tell important stories and reveal the meaning held within is an essential part of what it means to be a scientist. Beautiful Science explores how our understanding of ourselves and our planet has evolved alongside our ability to represent, graph and map the mass data of the time.
The associated events for the exhibition are listed here
Unfortunately  this event….
Andy Kirk, founder of Visualising Data will be holding his renowned Introduction to Data Visualisation course at the British Library to coincide with Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight.
…is sold out but fear not you can get to see what Andy is about by looking at his website

Students who came to my Visual Literacy workshop last term will already know about the King of Data visualisation  Hans Rosling Professor of Global Health, Karolinska Institutet. Edutainer & co-founder of Gapminder Foundation, Stockholm, Sweden · gapminder.org

Meanwhile as with everything and especially anything that is immensely visually attractive -beware of being misled!! Here is a warning article about taking care to question the veracity of infographics from John Burn-Murdoch of the Guardian

Thursday 27 February 2014

Reel to Real

'Reel to Real' is a sound curating project, funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, designed to catalogue, digitise and  make available online, in gallery spaces and beyond, the Pitt Rivers Museum's unique archival field recordings. The content of the recordings ranges from spirits singing in the rainforests of the Central African Republic to children's songs and games in playgrounds throughout Europe.

The project website includes information about and playlists from all of the Museum's original ethnographic recordings, video and interview resources, ethnomusicology seminars, their SoundCloud account and much more. 

Reel to Real Project Website here.

Visualiser combining Bayaka sound waves and images

The related  SoundCloud account can be found here, and customised playlists and sets can be found here.

Wednesday 12 February 2014

How we view Civil Rights, the images, the meanings and the roles of photography

Human Rights Human Wrongs 5.45pm 5 March 2014 at the National Museum Cardiff in the Reardon Smith lecture theatre

Bob Fitch, Martin L. King (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.),
Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America,
December 1965.
Reproduction from the Black Star Collection,
Ryerson University. Courtesy of the Ryerson Image Centre.

Using the 1948 Universal Declaration of human rights as a point of departure, Mark Sealy, MBE, RPS Hood Medal, Director Autograph ABP and Founding CEO of Rivington Place London, examines whether images of political struggle, suffering, and of victims of violence work for or against humanitarian objectives, especially when considering questions of race, representation, ethical responsibility and the cultural position of the photographer.
The talk will reflect on the imagery that has informed perceptions of civil rights, ranging from historic events such as the Selma to Montgomery March and Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech, to the independence movements in many African countries as well as more recent examples of injustice within wider global conflicts. Here the historical and contemporary roles of photography to validate and question the case for civil and human rights will be examined from different perspectives.

The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited.
This lecture forms part of a series accompanying a project by  National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections
To reserve your place,  email: Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk

with your name and contact telephone number.