July 16, 2024

ArtCenter Exhibition Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art－Part of The Getty's PST ART: Art & Science Collide－Explores Big Data's Impact on Daily Life

September 19, 2024 through February 15, 2025
Opening Reception: Thursday, September 19, 6–8 p.m.

Featuring the work of more than 16 artists and designers, including Refik Anadol, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Mika Tajima, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, and others at the forefront of data visualization.

On view at ArtCenter's Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public.

Big data. The dawn of it in the early 1990s brought advancements in data visualization—with huge amounts of information organized graphically to make it engaging to researchers and to the public. In its early forms, data visualization was used in map-making and creating statistical graphics, and to convey information in the sciences and support analytic reasoning. Since then, the means to gather, mine, comprehend and understand data have progressed.

From September 19, 2024 to February 15, 2025, ArtCenter College of Design proudly presents Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art, a wide-ranging and multilayered exhibition exploring how contemporary art, design and culture respond to big data’s impact on daily life. On display at ArtCenter's Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery, the exhibition is part of Getty's PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Southern California’s landmark art event. The exhibition will feature works by more than 16 leading data visualization artists and designers.

"For these artists, data serves as a prompt, much like a language, to communicate with the audience through novel means of discourse and experimentation," said ArtCenter President Karen Hofmann. "The exhibition explores a critical cultural moment of the data divide, namely emphasizing racial, ethnic and socioeconomic inequities, as well as who data is collected by and how it is used."

Featured artists include Refik Anadol, Laurie Frick, Hyojung Seo, George Legrady, Rafael Lozano Hemmer, Giorgia Lupi and Ehren Shorday, Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, Sarah Morris, Data to Discovery: Santiago Lombeyda and Hillary Mushkin, Mimi Ọnụọha, Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, Linnéa Gabriella Spransy, Mika Tajima, Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg, Peggy Weil, Christine Wertheim, Margaret Wertheim and The Institute for Figuring.

"We're honored to have this exhibition be a part of Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide,” said Stephen Nowlin, the exhibition’s co-curator. “It aims to open a dialogue on issues ranging from the vastness and capabilities of data systems to the personal, social and humanitarian consequences of data collection and technologies. Recognizing that data visualization has become an influential force in contemporary art and design, Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art hopes to transform visual literacy in the global landscape."

The exhibition focuses on nuanced concepts about data and data visualization that include Data Humanism, Invisible Data and Data Environments. Giorgia Lupi, represented in the exhibition by a large scale installation created in collaboration with Ehren Shorday, advocates a humanistic approach. Lupi coined the term Data Humanism in reaction to computer-generated graphs, pie charts and generic human icons used by mainstream media in the ‘90s. Hormonium, by Rafael Lozano Hemmer, illustrates chronobiology by combining nature forms with text and human time- and life-cycles.

Invisible Data references the unseen nature of data and the influence of data biases. The Library of Missing Data Sets, by Mimi Ọnụọha, highlights forgotten or traditionally overlooked communities. Sarah Morris’s Sound Graph Series both explore the deep relationship between sound and visual representation. Mika Tajima’s Archive of Feelings is the artist’s first-ever NFT project that utilizes a custom algorithm to process text-based social media data and forecast collective emotions.

Data Environments works express concern for Earth’s current state and climate. Cloud Prototype by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle is a large-scale sculpture formed by the study of weather systems and compilations of numerical data from thunderclouds. Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg’s Wind Map depicts, in real time, wind patterns related to geographic locations throughout the United States. Pod Worlds, by Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim, simulates—using crochet—coral reef ecosystems threatened by natural and human causes. Refik Anadol’s AI data paintings, California Landscapes: Generative Studies, radically compile and re-visualize clusters of publicly available images sourced from select locations to examine humans’ experiences of nature.

Seeing the Unseeable: Data, Design, Art is organized by Julie Joyce, director, ArtCenter Galleries; Stephen Nowlin, artist, curator, and founding director of ArtCenter’s Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery; and Christina Valentine, curator, ArtCenter Galleries.

Participating artists in the exhibition:
Refik Anadol
Laurie Frick
Hyojung Seo
George Legrady
Rafael Lozano Hemmer
Giorgia Lupi and Ehren Shorday
Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle
Sarah Morris
Data to Discovery: Santiago Lombeyda and Hillary Mushkin
Mimi Ọnụọha
Semiconductor: Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt
Linnéa Gabriella Spransy
Mika Tajima
Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg
Peggy Weil
Christine Wertheim, Margaret Wertheim and The Institute for Figuring

For more information about PST ART: Art & Science Collide, please visit: pst.art

Location:
Alyce de Roulet Williamson Gallery
ArtCenter College of Design
1700 Lida Street
Pasadena, CA 91103
exhibitions@artcenter.edu

Williamson Gallery Hours:
Wednesday through Saturday, 12 p.m.–5 p.m. (Closed Sunday–Tuesday and holidays)
Admission to the gallery is free. Free parking is available at 1700 Lida Street, Pasadena, CA 91103.

For previews and special appointments, please contact: exhibitions@artcenter.edu