AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

This fascinating bit of info was posted in the Art4Development listserv:

Data + Art: Science and Art in the Age of Information

Data + Art: Science and Art in the Age of Information and Eye in the Sky: JPL's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

PASADENA, CA.- Organized by the Pasadena Museum of California Art
(PMCA) and curated by Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Visual
Strategist Dan Goods and Mars Public Engagement Outreach Coordinator
David Delgado, Data + Art: Science and Art in the Age of Information
explores how scientific data can be experienced and translated by
artists into new and startling forms. This exhibition challenges the
viewer's assumptions by exploring the beauty inherent in the
information and asking viewers to see science in a new light. These
artistic interpretations of scientific data will empower the average
person to see the invisible, hear the inaudible and understand the
impossibly complex.

A new generation of artists has begun to manipulate and use data as
an artistic medium and explore its meaning and impact on our lives.
Some artists use information from public websites and blogs, others
collaborate with scientists to cull data from ongoing research, and
others rely on highly personal information from their own lives.
Together these artists are leading us to a new understanding of the
ones and zeroes that surround us in the information age.

"Spam Architecture" by Alex Dragulescu presents images generated by a
computer program that accepts input and junk email. Various patterns,
keywords and rhythms found in the text are translated into three-
dimensional modeling gestures.

Much of these works are created by sifting through vast amounts of
digital information to reveal hidden stories about the natural world
and the human condition. Data for this exhibition will come from a
broad range of sources including JPL, Caltech, social networking web
sites, email spam, scientific research data, and the presidential
election. The art produced from this data will include sound, images,
installations, performance and interstellar communications.

Although art and science institutions have occasionally collaborated
with one another, they have historically been seen as polar
opposites. Pasadena is home to the illustrious aerospace institutions
JPL and Caltech, and the similarities between science and art are now
brought to life in this collaborative exhibition at the PMCA, which
also features an accompanying exhibition about the Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter, Eye in the Sky: JPL'S Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter. This new satellite built by JPL offers a new glimpse at the
surface of Mars through a high-powered imaging spectrometer, and the
resulting "photos" expand the traditional boundaries of art.