Thinking with Data: Beyond Data Visualization – Data as Art!
May 19th at 3:30pm in the Knight Library DREAM lab.
In Person + Online. There will be drinks and snacks!
Register here to attend the lecture in person or remotely.

Dr. Greg Matthews, Associate Professor and Director for Data Science at Loyola University, will discuss the historical importance of context and technology in art. He argues that “Data Art” is the next logical step for the art world and discusses how people can get involved in making data art.

According to Dr. Matthews, “Artists throughout history have created art that is a reflection of the society that they are living in and experiencing. One of the most dominating features of the society we are currently living in is the massive amount of data that is continuously being collected; we live in a big data world. It is natural then that artists would begin to reflect on this aspect of society and incorporate data into their art. In this talk, I give a brief history of technology and data in art followed by a summary of data art from the 21st century.”

Professor Matthews will also appear at Coffee + Data && Code on May 20^th at noon for a more informal hybrid conversation and more snacks (register for Coffee + Data && Code here).

The New Media and Culture Certificate is a transdisciplinary program open to graduate students working at the intersection of new media and culture in any masters or Ph.D. program at the University of Oregon.

The NMCC connects you to students working at the intersection of new media and culture and a wide range of topics from different disciplinary backgrounds, as well as affiliated faculty committed to providing support for new media scholars at UO, regardless of their home department.

Though you’re welcome to apply at any point in their studies, there are limits to the number of credits taken before acceptance into the Certificate program that can count toward NMCC requirements. As such, you should apply as early in your graduate program as possible, and ideally as soon as you decide you want to pursue NMCC. Applications for the program are due by the middle of Week 5 every term. For Spring 2022, that deadline is fast approaching: Tuesday, April 26th, 2022.

Join us for a Virtual Q&A session on Tuesday, April 19th, 3-5 PM. Drop by any time with your questions + queries about the application process or the program more broadly.

Join us:

NMCC Spring 2022 Virtual Q+A
Date + Time: Tuesday, April 19th, 3-5 PM
Zoom Link: https://bit.ly/nmccspring2022qa
Passcode: kittler

EQUALITY IN DATA CURATION WORKSHOP

Friday, April 22nd at 2:00p in Knight Library Room 101
Part of the Responsible Data Science Workshop Series

The “Responsible Data Science” series is a joint venture of the UO Data Science Initiative, Department of Philosophy, School of Law, and Oregon Health Sciences University. Each workshop in the series will focus on a different topic of concern for data-centric research environments.

The second workshop in the series will be held in Spring term 2022 on Friday, April 22nd at 2:00p in Knight Library Room 101 with NMCC director, Dr. Colin Koopman.

The focus will be on tools for understanding the conceptual underpinnings and historical contexts of data structures, fields, and variables defining our databases. There will be discussion of the value of equality and the very meaning of equality itself (does equality imply sameness, difference-sensitive treatment, or something else?). And there will be an overview of tools for assessing and identifying potential inequalities in data design itself. If you can, please bring a data set (or more precisely a database schema) with you (either one you use, have used, or plan to use) and we’ll take a hands-on approach.

Advanced Registration Requested: send a quick email indicating interest to Paul Showler in the Philosophy Department at pauls@uoregon.edu. Please be sure and include your name, position title, and campus affiliation.

Data Trouble

MIRIAM POSNER, Assistant Professor, UCLA School of Information
Part of the Thinking with Data Lecture Series

Digital humanists have no particular problem talking about data. We use it, trade it, and think about it constantly. Many “traditional” humanists, though, bristle at the notion that their sources constitute “data.” And yet humanists work with evidence, and they speak of proving their claims. So is this just a problem of terminology? I’ll argue in this talk that our data trouble is more substantial than we’ve acknowledged. The term “data” seems alien to the humanities not just because humanists aren’t used to computers, but because it exposes some very real differences in the way humanists and scholars from some other fields conceive of the work they do. In this talk, I’ll outline the specific points of tension between the notion of data and the ways that humanists work with sources, and I’ll explain why I think this epistemological divide actually suggests some incredibly interesting avenues of investigation. Is there a way we can build humanist concerns into the data table?

Miriam Posner is an assistant professor at the UCLA School of Information. She’s also a digital humanist with interests in labor, race, feminism, and the history and philosophy of data. As a digital humanist, she is particularly interested in the visualization of large bodies of data from cultural heritage institutions, and the application of digital methods to the analysis of images and video. A film, media, and American studies scholar by training, she frequently writes on the application of digital methods to the humanities. She is at work on two projects: the first on what “data” might mean for humanistic research; and the second on how multinational corporations are making use of data in their supply chains.

Thursday, April 14, 2022, 5:00pm – 6:30pm PST
In-Person (Knight DREAM Lab) or Online
Register: https://uoregon.libcal.com/calendar/dataservices/miriam_posner

Sponsored by: Professor Roy Chan of East Asian Languages and Literatures + the Data Services Department of UO Libraries.