Yael Eylat Van-Essen PhD – Curator / Researcher

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Dialogue Between Design and Science, Visualizing Data and Visualizing through Data

In the age of big data, when digital technologies make it possible to absorb and process vast amounts of information, data becomes a significant engine for innovation and growth. Yet, data may become worthless if it is not possible to understand the existing relationships between its various components. In this context, visual tools become central to the needs of information accessibility, and they often make it possible to reach essential insights by identifying patterns that, in many cases, cannot be detected by other means. They make the understanding of the data simpler, and explain complex scientific phenomena. They can also be utilized to optimize the ways information is understood; for example, to quickly access information in emergency situations, to indicate potential future processes or to mediate information to influence public opinion on political issues. Concurrently, new possibilities enabled by applying big data and AI algorithms, make it possible to generate new visuals

The field of information visualization requires, in many cases, collaborations between scientists and designers to maximize the effectiveness of the information. These collaborations not only make it possible to extract new knowledge from the data but also to develop new methodologies and aesthetics of visual expressions that take on new forms in various physical and virtual mediums. This Conference aims to examine the potential of these developments and understand how scientists and designers can learn from each other through these processes.

The Conference will host lectures that refer to different aspects and contexts of applying data visualization and visualization through data. Among the topics which will be addressed are: perspectives for using enhanced visualization technologies as a tool for scientific and artistic research; interpretive aspects of data visualization and their potential implications; visualization of hidden structures of the public sphere in online social networks; the creative potentiality of generation images through text based on mega databases; using visual digital twins as a tool for urban planning and using advanced visualization technologies as a tool for enhancing social awareness and as a scientific methodology in social and political sciences.

The conference is a collaboration between the Faculty of Design, the School of Computer Science at HIT, and the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art at the University of West Bohemia, Czech Republic. Speakers at this conference are from the Holon Institute of Technology, the University of West Bohemia, the Technion, Beer Sheva University, the Royal College in London and the Ars Electronics Center in Linz, Austria.