Translating COVID-19 into music

The Art and Science of Data Visualization

Data visualization (dataviz) has entered the limelight in the recent decade or so for all the right reasons. It's an innovative way to convert masses of complicated data into an aesthetic and coherent graphical story. In this episode I talk to Jyotsna Shivkumar, senior designer at The Economist (one of the UK's leading newspapers) to shed some light on what it's like to create a dataviz and some of the psychosocial theories which underpin this process. The Economist's Health Inclusivity Index [https://impact.economist.com/projects/health-inclusivity-index] dataviz which won the Webby Award in 2023. Theories mentioned: Gestalt Principles [https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/gestalt-principles] Universal design Theory [https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-1901-8_2]Pre-attentive Processing [https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/preattentive-visual-properties-and-how-to-use-them-in-information-visualization] Visual Attention Theory [https://academic.oup.com/book/3029/chapter-abstract/143751235?redirectedFrom=fulltext] Other mentions: The story of the Düsseldorf Airport fire [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCsseldorf_Airport_fire]

Photographic Photosynthesis Portraits

In the second episode of the SciArt Edit Podcast, I talk to Dan Harvey and Heather Ackroyd from the collective Ackroyd & Harvey. Dan and Heather are two widely acclaimed british artists who combine sculpture, photography, architecture and biology in their iconic photosynthesis photograph pieces, creating huge-scale portraits out of grass. Join us as we explore the inspiration behind the portraits, the techniques involved in creating these and their experience of working in collaboration with ecologists. Website: https://www.ackroydandharvey.com/ [https://www.ackroydandharvey.com/] Dear Earth Exhibition, Ackroyd & Harvey on their process of photographic photosynthesis (Blog) [https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/blog/videos/ackroyd-harvey-dear-earth-process-photographic-photosynthesis] Follow the podcast on Instagram @thesciartedit

Translating COVID-19 into music

In the first episode of The SciArt Edit Podcast, I'm joined by material scientist Prof. Markus Buehler [https://cee.mit.edu/people_individual/markus-j-buehler/](MIT) and revered South Korean violinist Hyung Joon Won [https://www.peacetalks.net/pt/hyung-joon-won/] to discuss their unique collaboration, resulting in a piece that went viral back in 2020. The project involved using Artificial Intelligence to translate the structure of COVID-19's spike protein into music, and was performed live by Hyung Joon's orchestra.  Here I catch up with them to discuss the project from the process of translating the protein, to the musical interpretation of the piece that resulted. Listen now! You can find both the pieces mentioned in the episode below: Viral Counterpoint of the Coronavirus Spike Protein (2019-nCoV) [https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/viral-counterpoint-of-the-coronavirus-spike-protein-2019-ncov?in=user-275864738/sets/protein-counterpoint&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing] Protein Antibody in E Minor [https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/protein-antibody-in-e-minor?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing] Follow the Podcast on Instagram @thesciartedit