Sensate abstraction: hybrid strategies for multi-dimensional data in expressive virtual reality contexts

Abstract

ATLAS in silico is an interactive installation/virtual environment that provides an aesthetic encounter with metagenomics data (and contextual metadata) from the Global Ocean Survey (GOS). The installation creates a visceral experience of the abstraction of nature in to vast data collections -a practice that connects expeditionary science of the 19th Century with 21st Century expeditions like the GOS. Participants encounter a dream-like, highly abstract, and datadriven virtual world that combines the aesthetics of fine-lined copper engraving and grid-like layouts of 19th Century scientific representation with 21st Century digital aesthetics including wireframes and particle systems. It is resident at the Calit2 Immersive visualization Laboratory on the campus of UC San Diego, where it continues in active development. The installation utilizes a combination of infrared motion tracking, custom computer vision, multi-channel (10.1) spatialized interactive audio, 3D graphics, data sonification, audio design, networking, and the Varrier™ 60 tile, 100-million pixel barrier strip auto-stereoscopic display. Here we describe the physical and audio display systems for the installation and a hybrid strategy for multi-channel spatialized interactive audio rendering in immersive virtual reality that combines amplitude, delay and physical modeling-based, real-time spatialization approaches for enhanced expressivity in the virtual sound environment that was developed in the context of this artwork. The desire to represent a combination of qualitative and quantitative multidimensional, multi-scale data informs the artistic process and overall system design. We discuss the resulting aesthetic experience in relation to the overall system.

Proteus and the Digital: Scalar Transformations of Seawater’s Materiality in Ocean Animations

“…These particles each stand for 'one data record describing a unique protein sequence from the GOS [global ocean survey] data'. 19 Particles are also referred to as 'open-reading frames' (ORFs), the predicted amino acid (protein) sequences of their DNA (West et al, 2009a). 20 Each particle circulates in a broad, three-dimensional flow.…”

“…These particles, 'when brought in to close proximity by participants become luminous three-dimensional objects that reveal their story in multiple layers of information that intertwine biology, with its social, environmental and metadata contexts' such as salinity and the depth at which they were collected (see Figure 4). 21 The 'life-size rendering' of the genetic information into a symbolic body ('shape grammar') is adjusted to a scale and size that we can view, interpret, and manipulate for the purpose of detecting patterns in the data (West et al, 2009a; see Figure 5).…”