Syllabus for Information Aesthetics at UIC School of Art and Design
"This studio course investigates the database as cultural form (Manovich, 2001), in the context of data visualization, digital fabrication, and computational aesthetics. Traditionally viewed as a tool for scientific reasoning and data exploration, information visualization has emerged as an artistic practice, propelled by the democratization of data sources and the advancement of computer graphics. The massive amount of data collected and disseminated online constitutes the basis for this course. Participants will be introduced to the basic skills for developing creative projects in two-, three-, and four dimensions, such as indexes, graphs, prints, digitally fabricated objects and maps. Students will also become familiar with the a basic vocabulary to co-create and collaborate with professionals in future contexts.
The course focuses on current standards for web development and mobile applications, including HTML5, CSS3, jQuery, PHP, MySQL, and Processing(.js). Fundamentals in XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets, and programming are beneficial, but not required. Throughout the course, students are asked to utilize the class blog to collect and share resources, collaboratively collecting interesting data sources towards a final project. A series of presentations, screenings, readings, and discussions will expose students to creative projects and artworks in the context of information visualization. Each student selects a research topic followed by an in-class research presentation (see schedule). Participants will also present their work during class critiques and interdisciplinary workshops to receive qualitative feedback from the instructor(s) and the class."
(Daniel Sauter, University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Art and Design, Fall 2011)
Fig.1 Matt Wizinsky (2011). "Chicago unDensity", University of Illinois at Chicago.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Flash web application prototypes
I created a series of Flash web application prototypes between 2002 and 2003. I did so as part of my design experimentation and growing interest in software design. As a result the prototypes were very limited in their scope as they tended to focus on particular concepts or techniques. For example I created my Kiwifruit prototype to explore an approach to updating database records which removed the need for users to make explicit update/submit decisions; I created my Rhizome prototype to explore approaches to contextual grouping and association; and I created my in-flight meal booking prototype to test some ideas I had about interactive information design. I developed the applications using a combination of Macromedia (Adobe) Flash, PHP, XML and MySQL. The prototypes now stand as a useful reminder of the promise that Flash offered in the early part of this century - before HTML5, the iPad and responsive layout etc.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Moodle: a social constructionist course management system
"Moodle is a software package for producing Internet-based courses and web sites. It is a global development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of education."
(Martin Dougiamas)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
PhpDelicious : wrapper for the del.icio.us API
"PhpDelicious is a PHP 5 library for accessing the del.icio.us API. It combines data from the main REST and JSON APIs and presents a consolidated interface. It also implements a file based caching system which eliminates the need to query on every request and ensures access to the API won't be throttled due to excessive requests."
(Ed Eliot)
[Through implementing this PHP 5 library bookmarks can be implicitly published to an existing delicious account i.e. published without first needing to navigate to your page on the delicious.com web site.]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Creative Resource (students) on Twitter
"Creative resource for Media and Multimedia students."
(various)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
