Name: Clayton Main Title of the talk: “Visualizing ourselves … with crowd-sourced data Speaker: Aaron Koblin, Data artist Presentation date: March 2011 Date viewed: 4/3/2017

Summary of the talk: In this talk, Aaron talks about some of the ideas and projects he has worked on with crowdsourced data, and demonstrates how he has turned it into art. At the very start of the speech Aaron demonstrates a project he worked on. This project shows a map made from only American air traffic. Being an interactive map though, you can see the busy times of day, the more populated areas, busy flight paths, and even altitude levels. Aaron shows how you can take the data even further zooming and sectioning off parts. Aaron then goes to show how this data/art concept can work with crowdsourcing. In one of his first crowdsourced projects, he asked for donors to submit a drawn picture of a sheep. From this Aaron, could show the sheep per hour, rejected sheep, time spent drawing, and much more. Towards the end of the speech Aaron shows how we can use this same concept to create a work of art. In similar fashion a group was asked to draw a specific picture. When the pictures were put together (with audio) it created a Johnny Cash music video.

Interesting things I learned from the talk: I’ve never seen anyone take data and make interactive art from it. It was interesting to see how many people contributed to something they didn’t understand until the end.

Evaluation of the presenter: Aaron Koblin talked fast during his speech. However, he did give a lengthy speech. He had lots of experience and story’s, and knew his field very well.

Evaluation of the talk: Aarons speech was full of many videos and pictures showing his past work. It was very integrating to watch and at the same time educational. His work really helps show the collected data in a very engaging way. The talk didn’t have a serious tone to it, which made it entertaining and enjoyable.