Author: arybin

Assistant Director, Visual Resources Collection, University of Chicago
THATCamp Organizer

Categories
Innovative Technology

Science and Art in 3-D

A recent profile in the New York Times showcases two artists, working inside and outside academia, who both believe that “better visualization leads to better thinking.” Sculptor Nathalie Miebach “translates weather data and other scientific measurements into three-dimensional objects that accurately display temperature variations, barometric pressure and moon phases, among other things.” Matthew McCrory uses 3-D display to help scientists at Northwestern University visualize their data:

“Undergrads in front of a big 3-D display? They’re going to be pulled in.” But that’s just the beginning. “We are translating computational theoretical data that could not be seen in any other way,” he continued. “Astronomy, chemistry, biology — there isn’t any place we can’t touch.”

 

Categories
Tech Support

Tips for Keeping Gmail Organized

Do you use Gmail? Need some help keeping it organized? Check out Google’s guide to becoming a “Gmail Ninja,” whether you’re a White Belt (novice user) or Gmail Expert. You’ll find out how to use labels, filters, tasks, and other features in order to organize your messages and find them easily.

Categories
Modern - Contemporary

Photos and Videos from Collaboration & the Artist’s Book

This symposium aims above all to point out the key role of literary/artistic interactions – and of their most direct material expression, the “artist’s book” – in the metamorphoses of 20th- and 21st-century literature and art.

Photos and videos from the symposium Collaboration & the Artist’s Book, held in Caen and Paris last Spring, are now available online.

Via Charles Bernstein.

Categories
Innovative Technology Photography

Shoot Now, Focus Later: The New Lytro Camera

Start-up company Lytro is causing a buzz with their so-called light field camera, the first to allow users to shoot first and focus later.

While viewing a picture taken with a Lytro camera on a computer screen, you can, for example, click to bring people in the foreground into sharp relief, or switch the focus to the mountains behind them.

The camera will be released to the consumer market later this year. Via The New York Times.

Categories
Images on the Web Museums

Explore Britain’s Paintings Online

Your Paintings is a website which aims to show the entire UK national collection of oil paintings, the stories behind the paintings, and where to see them for real. It is made up of paintings from thousands of museums and other public institutions around the country.

Your Paintings is a joint initiative between the BBC, the Public Catalogue Foundation (a registered charity) and participating collections and museums from across the UK.

Over 60,000 of the 200,000 publicly-owned paintings are currently online. Critics, scholars, and artists also provide virtual guided tours, including Yinka Shonibare who discusses the art that inspires him.

 

Categories
VRC

19 Web Applications to Promote Concentration

Having a hard time focusing while you work, what with all of those tempting distractions like Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook? Or is your problem instead that you forget to take mental and physical breaks from your work? Either way, there are various web applications available to help you be your most productive. Check out Gigaom’s “19 Apps to Boost Concentration” for more information.

Categories
Architecture Moving Images

SCI-Arc to Create Comprehensive Digital Lecture Archive

The Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) has received two major grants from the NEA and Getty Foundation that will be used to create the SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive.

This free web archive will contain more than 1,000 hours of key architectural and design lectures and symposia from 1974 to the present that will be accessible online, via phone applications, e-readers, and other new media channels… The SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive will provide access to never before seen footage of some of the most influential leaders in architecture and design, including Frank O. Gehry, Zaha Hadid, David Hockney, Rem Koolhaas, John Lautner, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Kazuyo Sejima, and many more… Scheduled to be launched in 2012—coinciding with SCI-Arc’s 40th anniversary—the SCI-Arc Digital Lecture Archive will feature a sophisticated search engine that will allow access to both entire lectures as well as specific segments of each lecture, placing the school’s significant archive at one’s fingertips.

Via Archinet.

Categories
Images on the Web

Reanimation Library Launches New Website

The Reanimation Library recently announced the launch of the newly redesigned www.reanimationlibrary.org. About the collection:

It is a collection of books that have fallen out of routine circulation and been acquired for their visual content. Outdated and discarded, they have been culled from thrift stores, stoop sales, and throw-away piles, and given new life as a resource for artists, writers, cultural archeologists, and other interested parties.

Books may be searched by keyword or browsed by author, title, or subject. Book records are linked to any corresponding digitized images (usually including their covers). Visitors may also browse the digitized images visually.

Categories
Exhibitions Modern - Contemporary Museums

John Baldessari: Your Name in Lights

Iconic American conceptual artist John Baldessari is looking for people who want their name in lights, but just for 15 glittering seconds.

Your Name in Lights reflects the changing cult of celebrity in modern society and recalls Andy Warhol’s prediction that in the future everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame. Drawing on imagery from Broadway theatre displays and Hollywood films, this ambitious new work will involve more than 100,000 participants.

Via Sydney Festival 2011. The Holland Festival and the Stedelijk Museum jointly present the new installation of this interactive artwork at Museumplein, Amsterdam from June 1 to 26, 2011. Register here and your name will appear in lights!

Categories
Modern - Contemporary

Mapping the Sculpture of Britain and Ireland

Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951 is the first authoritative study of sculptors, related businesses and trades investigated in the context of creative collaborations, art infrastructures, professional networks and cultural geographies. This database is the main outcome of the research and contains over 50,000 records about sculptural practice. The information has been entered so that the numerous connections between different areas of practice can be explored. To read more about the research programme click here or to view some sample searches click here.

A mobile interface is also available.