"Sound Lines" depicts live music performances across Chicago.
"See through Sifu" visualizes the movements of a Tai Chi practitioner.
Visitors examine text-based installation "Fake It Until You Make It."
"Homo Somnum" displays brain activity from sleeping students.
Dean Julio M. Ottino addresses visitors at the exhibition's opening reception on January 26.
"Big Money" uses augmented reality to visualize the history of government spending.
How might a fleeting musical performance create a sense of place for residents in a large city?
Students from Northwestern Engineering and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) created a soundscape to illustrate one possible answer. Sound Lines, an artistic installation that depicts live music performances across Chicago, is now on display in the Ford Motor Company Engineering Design Center through February 26. Visitors can interact with the installation by flipping switches to illuminate panels representing musical genres and the neighborhoods where the music was performed during a specific timeframe.
The installation is one of five projects included in an exhibition celebrating "Data As Art", a fall course jointly led by faculty from Northwestern Engineering and SAIC. During the course, students from both schools formed interdisciplinary teams, conducted research using data sets, and then represented that data through visual art. Supported by the Barry and Mary Ann MacLean Fund for Arts and Engineering, the course provides new opportunities for art and engineering students to enhance the way they see, perceive, and interact with the world.
Jim Wicks, clinical associate professor in the Segal Design Institute, co-taught the course with Malcolm MacIver, professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering.
Ann Yu, a senior double majoring in philosophy and computer science at at Northwestern, took the course because of her lifelong interest in art.
Brad Gallagher, a senior at SAIC majoring in writing, found value in the class's emphasis on teamwork.
Homo Somnum: An animative LED display that uses the data of brain activity collected from sleeping students by an electroencephalography monitoring method.
Big Money: A sculptural installation that uses augmented reality to visualize the history of government spending.
Fake It Until You Make It: A text-based installation created by using a script from the programming language Python to crawl newspaper articles about education.
See Through Sifu: A video installation visualizes the movements of a Tai Chi practitioner, with elegant trajectories that evoke the attitude fostered by the Chinese martial art.