Wed. May 1st: Dietmar Offenhuber

Photo by Frank Kleinbach
Dust.zone – does matter communicate?
As digital information plays an increasingly central role in society, questions of truthfulness, authority, and hidden biases have become a widespread concern. Visualization and data analytics are seen as critical tools to separate the signal from the noise. These tools, however, are silent about how data comes into being, the material conditions and social practices of data collection. As symbolic representations, data are disconnected from the material world.
Especially the discourse around climate change and environmental pollution depends on large data sets and computational methods, whose results cannot always be reconciled with human experience. In my talk, I will focus on the evidentiary practices of identifying, revealing, and interpreting physical traces. To this end, I will introduce the concept of sensory accountability, which encompasses visual practices and communication strategies that focus on physical evidence to make the process of data collection accountable and accessible to sensory experience.
When: Wednesday, May 1st, 7:30pm
Where: Boston Cyberarts Gallery, 141 Green St., Jamaica Plain, MA (next to the Green Street Station)
Presenter: Dietmar Offenhuber
Free event
About the Presenter
Dietmar Offenhuber is Associate Professor at Northeastern University in the areas of information design and urban affairs. He holds a PhD in Urban Planning from MIT. His research focuses on the relationship between design, technology, and urban governance. Dietmar is the author of the award-winning monograph Waste is Information (MIT Press) and has published books on urban data and related social practices. He also works as an advisor to the United Nations Development Programme.