Four Themes

Outliers - new patterns

The patterns we make in order to understand our world are the same patterns that blind us to understanding one another in a more complete way. I create animations of the patterns in these data, revealing outliers that do not fit existing forms, and then I expose larger patterns that incorporate these anomalies.  Viewers instinctively find their own patterns in this data-driven art, comparing and contrasting what they know about the source against their own interpretations of the abstract imagery.  Viewers of this artwork also create their own outliers, which lead to new patterns, and thereby create new ways to enlarge their own view of themselves and others. 

Reverse engineering dreams

In the past I would solve problems or take advantage of an opportunity by dreams that would have colors, shapes, and locations. The data architecture and algorithms would somehow flow from these visions. I am now reversing this process and allowing the data to form the colors and shapes of a dream that becomes a vision. When the visualization comes close to matching a prior dream, then I know that the artwork has arrived. This is why I call it reverse engineering of dreams.

Representational Abstraction

There were two movements in the history of art, one representational, the other abstract.  These are considered antithetical to one another.

My art is both representational and abstract, a synthesis of the antithetical.   It is representational abstraction.  This merger of representational and abstract art is made possible by the merger of technology and art. 

Examples of my art being representational are my use of DNA data and CERN Large Hadron Collider data.  DNA represents the person.  The CERN data not only represent the muons, bosons, etc., but also are these particles as the particles die within nanoseconds, and all that is left are the data.

My art is an abstraction of the representational data.

Sentience of data

Data have a way of ‘talking’ to me about the world they represent. I am trying to visualize for others the sentience that I see and feel in the data.