Lecture at Northeastern University, Boston / USA Master in Information Design and Visualization at Dietmar Offenhuber class.

1. Warning - Real Time Global Air Quality
Display: case study of digital art and
public spaces
Rodrigo Medeiros
October 7, 2014
Boston
Northeastern University

2. My timeline of studies in
Information Design and Visualization
2005-2011
Rodrigo Medeiros
Assistant Professor, IFPB, Design
PhD Candidate, UFPE, Computer Science
October 7, 2014
Boston
Northeastern University

4. Background
• Undergraduate: Web Design or system for web
• MBA: Information Design
• Master: Technology and Digital Art, Universidade do
Minho
• PhD candidate: Computer Science, Universidade Federal
de Pernambuco
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5. Background
• Amazing and crazy Master class: Sergio Soares, Rui
Ribeiro and Pedro Angelo.
• Masters without scholarship or family financial support
• Budget for my final project: EUR 150 / Others students’
final project: EUR 900
• Opensource Hardware and Software
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6. Warning
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7. Warning - Real Time Global Air Quality
Display: case study of digital art and
public spaces

8. Warning – real time global air quality display
Warning - Real Time Global Air Quality Display is an
installation of ambient display that receives data from
the internet about the air quality in 30 cities in 5
continents. The installation of these data is dynamically
displayed on a screen and a physical structure through a
lighting system (LED) located in a public space.
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9. Motivation
• Digital aesthetics of climate change (Pold, 2010)
– Artworks in digital art involving the issue of the
environment as a theme.
• Eco-visualization (Holmes, 2007)
– can be defined as animations controlled by data that
show any kind of environmental information in real-time.
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10. state of the art – art in public space
• Art of the City -> outside the museums -> everyday life
• Late 1960s: crisis of traditional exhibition spaces
(museums and galleries)
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11. state of the art – art in public space
family
WORK LEISURE
Reference:
Andrade
(2010).
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PRIVATE SPACE
marginal
groups
PUBLIC SPACE
MARGINAL
PUBLIC ART
street
AMATEUR
PRIVATE ART
PRO
PRIVATE ART
LEGITIMATE
PUBLIC ART social exclusion
degraded urban
neighborhood
local
associations
neighborhood
community
Group of friends
inhabitants
artists
artwork
local economy
atelier
pro staff
workplace
collections
private
patrons
art market
social inclusion
Local
administration
Public /
audience
Gallery /
Museum /
Central state cyberspace

12. state of the art – art in public space
L.A.S.E.R Tagging System , Rotterdam, 2007
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Vectorial Elevation at Cidade do México by
Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, 2000
Body Movies Relational Architecture 6 by Rafael
Lozano-Hemmer, 2002
BIX, Austria, 2003

13. state of the art – information visualization
• The information visualization aims to expand
knowledge through the development of effective visual
metaphors for mapping abstract data (Card; Mackinlay;
Shneiderman, 1999).
raw data > visual mapping > visualization
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14. state of the art – information visualization
• “Information Visualization is abstract data
communication through the use of interactive
visual interfaces” (Keim et al, 2006)
• “uses computer graphics and interaction to help
humans in solving problems” (Purchase et al,
2008).
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15. state of the art – information visualization
History Flow for keyword Capitalism at Wikipedia by Viégas and Wattenberg, 2003.
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16. state of the art – information visualization
Model of information aesthetics by Lau e Vande Moere (2007). 16

17. Van Moere and Offenhuber (2009) propose a classification for
alternative display of information.
• Ambient display
• Object augmentation
• Data sculpture / Pixel sculpture
Heatsink (Bonanni et al, 2005). DatWaFaronuinng
t-­‐a
Riena l
(Tvimaen
G Mloebanl
sAviro
Qouratli,t y2
D0is0pl4ay)
. Mirror Wooden (Rozin, 17
1999).
state of the art – information visualization

18. 18
Ballon Air Paris
E-cloud
In the air

19. warning– concept
• Air quality
• Air quality index:
• Carbon monoxide (CO)
• Nitrogen dioxide / nitrogen (NO2)
• Sulfur dioxide (SO2)
• Ozone (03)
• Fine particles and inhalable particles.
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20. Warning
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21. Warning – Steps
1. Construction and structure of installation
2. Definition and validation of display parameters
3. Hardware Development
4. Software Development
5. Critical analysis
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22. 22
Warning – Steps - Construction and
structure of installation

23. Warning – Steps - Construction and
structure of installation
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24. 24
Warning – Steps - Definition and validation
of display parameters
• Chromatic scale proposed by me
• Validation (two sessions of card sorting)
• Comparison with existing scales (final scale):
Best air quality Worst air quality
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25. 25
Warning – Steps –
Hardware Development
• Analysis of proposals:
• Implemented solution

26. 26
Final solution
A major challenge:
A lot of DIY and lost wires.

27. Warning – Steps –
Software Development
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28. 28
Warning – Steps –
Software Development

29. Warning – Steps –
Software Development
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30. Warning – Steps –
Installation
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32. Warning – Steps –
Installation
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33. Warning – Steps –
Installation
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40. Warning – Steps –
video
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41. 41
Warning – Steps –
Critical analysis
4 people for one week:
• More time for dynamic visualization;
• Debate about air quality;
• Recalled the most general images of clouds;
• Leaves the space more welcoming;
• More works of this kind in public space;
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42. Possibilities
• The art and technology in encouraging
debate on environmental issues.
• Lack of global standardization of air
quality index.
• Looking beyond the traditional use of the
screen as an interface.
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43. Positive Hypothesis
• Interface non-screen-based + softwares
and hardwares open-source -> new
aesthetic experiences built and coded with
low cost.
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44. Future work
• Wireless LEDs
• Research on another alternative display
• Projects with environmental subject
• More public and standardized databases among
governments / international institutions
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45. Obrigado!
www.rodrigomedeiros.com.br/warning
@medeiros_rod
rodrigopessoamedeiros@gmail.com
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46. References
• Andrade, Pedro de. (2010). Arte pública versus arte privada? Alteridades artítica urbana e web 2.0.
In Arte Pública e Cidadania: Calesdoscopio, Lisboa.
• Card, S; Mackinlay, J.D.; Shneiderman, B. (1999). Readings in Information Visualization: Using
Vision to Think. Morgan Kaufmann, Los Altos, CA.
• Holmes, Tiffany. (2007). Eco-visualization: Combining Art and Technology to Reduce Energy
Consumption. C&C’07, June 13–15, 2007, Washington, DC, USA.
• Keim, D..; Mansmann, F.; Schneidewind, J.; Ziegler, H.. (2006). Challenges in Visual Data Analysis.
Proceedings of Information Visualization (IV 2006), IEEE, p. 9-16, 2006.
• Lau, A.; Vande Moere, A.. (2007). Towards a Model of Information Aesthetic Visualization. IEEE
International Conference on Information Visualisation (IV'07), IEEE, Zurich , Switzerland, pp.
87-92.
• Pold, Søren Bro. (2010). The Digital Aesthetics of Climate Crisis. In: Funke, Judith; Riekeles, Stefan;
Broeckmann, Andreas; MedinKunsVerein, Hartware. (2010). ISEA2010 RUHR, 16th International
Symposium on Electronic Art. Ruhr, Germany.
• Purchase, H; Andrienko, N.; Jankun-Kelly, T. J.; Ward, M.. (2008). Theoretical Foundations of
Information Visualization. In: Kerren, A., Stasko, J. T., Fekete, J., North, C. (2008). Information
Visualization: Human-Centered Issues and Perspectives. Eds. Lecture Notes In Computer Science,
vol. 4950. Springer- Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, 46-64.
• Vande Moere, A.; Offenhuber, D. (2009) Beyond Ambient Display: A contextual taxonomy of
alternative information display. Information Journal of Ambient Computing and Inteligence,
1(2), 39-46, April-June.
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