Data Soliloquies is a book about the extraordinary cultural fluidity of scientific data. A wide array of graphs, charts, computer models and other forms of visual advocacy have become inescapable fixtures of public science presentations, though they are often treated as if they were neutral `found objects' rather than elaborate narrative constructions containing high levels of statistical uncertainty. Through a mix of essays and artworks, this witty and engaging book -- the result of a collaboration between Richard Hamblyn and Martin John Callanan during their terms as writer and artist in residence at the UCL Environment Institute -- examines the theatricality of scientific data display, while critiquing some of the poorly designed statistical wallpaper that surrounds so much public science debate.
Order from Amazon and all good bookshops:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Data-Soliloquies-Richard-Hamblyn/dp/0903305046/
ISBN 9780903305044 (November 2009)
http://greyisgood.eu/data
Link:
http://greyisgood.eu/data
Martin John Callanan is an artist and researcher exploring notions of citizenship within the globally connected world. Concerns include information, data, and knowledge.
Martin John Callanan is an artist whose work spans numerous mediums and engages both emerging and commonplace technology. His work has included translating active communication data into music; freezing in time the earth’s water system; writing thousands of letters; capturing newspapers from around the world as they are published; taming wind onto the internet and broadcasting his precise physical location live for over two years.
Martin's work is always decidedly deadpan and served with a dash of ennui. Some of his more well-known pieces include Letters 2004-2006 published by Book Works, the ambient audio installation Sonification of You, the meta-news aggregator I Wanted to See All the News From Today and Text Trends, which abstracts the casual manner in which we receive, scan and process information and language on a daily basis.
Martin's work has been exhibited, published and screened at venues throughout Europe, Russia, North America, South America, Asia and Australia. Participating with, among others, Es Baluard Modern and Contemporary Art Museum, Moscow International Film Festival, Ars Electronic Centre, ISEA 2010, FutureEverything, Museum of Contemporary Art of Vojvodina, Riga Centre for New Media Culture, UCL Environment Institute, Science Museum (London), Tate Britain, Folly Festival of Digital Culture, Book Works, The Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, File Prix Lux, and in several editions of the FILE Electronic Language International Festival in Brasil.
Martin is currently:
- Teaching Fellow in Fine Art Media (Digital Media & Print) at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London and a member of Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art (SCEMFA) and Word Image research group.
- Editor, Leonardo Electronic Almanac
- Publisher, Merkske
http://greyisgood.eu
marc garrett