Mixtures of Human Experience, Intellectual Analysis, Data Representation and Our Natural Environment

As humans, we are perpetually present in nature. We experience nature through sensory perception of everything that surrounds us: the breeze on our skin, the warmth of the sun, the scent of flowering plants, the tactile variations in the surfaces of our environment. We are constantly decoding and assimilating the clues our natural environment provides through sensory experiences. In contrast, expression of environmental and climate-based change through data measurement and analysis separates us from the sensory experience of our immediate environment. The current simulations and depictions of climate change data – ocean chemistry, coupled ecosystem models, the atmosphere far above and the ocean currents far below – are viewed as separate from our personal environments: distant, not part of us, not connected to us, and unrelated to our perpetually present sensory experience. The separation of our emotional connection to nature from our intellectual study inhibits our ability to absorb the growing impact on our daily lives. The work presented here seeks be a conduit assisting us to close the gap between our human emotional connection to nature from our intellectual study and the sterile analytical imagery we use to understand the invisible physical changes underway. We rely on the interplay of art, technology and science, and the dance of these disciplines as they augment one another to create an emotional connection between the audience and the data. Prior work focused on building out artistic vocabulary for clear, engaging science exploration and communication. The series presented here, melds the science inquiry, data representation, artistic contextual content to create new layers of meaning and connection.

Webpage: sites.utexas.edu/artscivis/

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