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BIO Ruth West is
an artist with background as a molecular genetics
researcher. She is Director, Interactive
Technologies for CENS (Center for Embedded Networked
Sensing) on the UCLA campus and is concurrently
an Artist-Research Associate at the UCSD Center for
Research in Computing and the Arts, where she is
the first CALIT2 New Media Artist crossing over to
the Digitally Enabled Genomic Medicine Layer.
Prior affiliations include artist-in-residence
and Director, Visual Analytics and Interactive Technologies
for the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging
Research.
Her work has been presented at venues such as SIGGRAPH,
CAA and the UCLA Fowler Museum, featured in NPR's
The Connection, the NY Times, the Genome News Network,
Aminima and in Artweek, and has been published various
journals, including the American Journal of Human
Genetics, Genomics, Leonardo, and the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences. |
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| Selected Projects | |
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ATLAS in silico reflects on one of the elemental scientific and cultural challenges of our time: the shift from an organism-centric to a sequence-centric view of nature made possible by metagenomics and it’s ensuing impact on our understanding of the nature, origins and unity of life. It is a physically interactive virtual environment/installation and art-science collaboration that provides a unique aesthetic encounter with metagenomics data (and contextual metadata) from the largest known protein sequence dataset, the Global Ocean Survey (GOS) - a ground-breaking snapshot of biodiversity in the world’s oceans.
Visit: http://www.atlasinsilico.net A brief description and video are here. |
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Ecce
Homology is an interactive installation that bridges art and science through the use of dynamic media, computer vision and computer graphics. Named after Friedrich Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, a meditation on how one becomes what one is, the project explores human evolution by examining similarities – known as “homology” – between genes from human beings and a target organism, in this case the rice plant. Visit: http://www.insilicov1.org A brief description and video are here. |
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The
Trajectory of Forgetting is an interactive
installation exploring the nature of memory, its
creation, erasure, and transformation, in an interplay
between genotype and phenotype, and its centrality
to our construct of Self and consciousness.
Description and images: Trajectory |
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Stars
is a work that reflects upon the intersection of gender
and the history of science. The sound installation transforms
astronomical data, digitally imaged on to 12" vinyl LPs,
into unique tonal compositions reminiscent of radio astronomy
recordings of pulsars. The strange yet somehow familiar
music mediates the relationship of the data to the history
of its production, as each LP contains the full-hemisphere
astronomical data for the birth or death for each of
several women members of the Harvard College Observatory,
collectively known as "The Harvard Computers" who collectively
are responsible for developing the schema used for classifying
stars by their spectra and cataloging and categorising
the majority of stellar data used as the basis for astromical
maps. Description, video and images: Stars |
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Dreamspace Fragments is an exploration into generating representations of the narrative content of dreams as virtual environments, or "dreamspaces." Using a derivative of the classification
system for dream content analyses developed by Calvin
Hall I encoded the narrative content of
dreams into numeric values
which were then used to define the parameters for generating
3-dimensional objects that are rendered as VRML worlds.
Description and images: Dreamspace |
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Multiscale
Data Exploration: Ongoing collaborative research
to develop systems for real-time visualization and
interaction with multi-modal data representing very
large and high-dimensional datasets (2D, 3D, and
4D) within immersive environments utilizing ultra-high
resolution displays connected by high-bandwidth low-latency
networks to facilitate distributed collaboration.
This research integrates ultra-high resolution tiled
displays, computer grahics and visualization, interatctive
technologies and multi-modal, multi-resolution imaging
data of biological systems. Key collaborators: Iman
Mostafavi, Dr. Jurgen Schulze, Raj Singh, in addition
to NCMIR, Calit2 and EVL researchers. Video and description: Multiscale |
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Mixed-media
works on canvas and paper: An exploration
of the potential for transformation of consciousness
through visual experience via the creation of images
that are neither representational nor interpretive
-- images whose sole content is the act of seeing. View: Works on canvas and paper. |
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timen = inspiration 2explores
the relationship between time and money, the selling of human time for
money through labor, and the alternative - purchasing time in continuous
or asynchronos multiple dimensions. It is an online experience
where individuals create an alternate identity and go on a shopping
spree for time. In collaboration with Ingo Tributh.
Description and images: Time |
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Path
of Silence This project highlight page shows
preliminary studies for a an installation that
would combine real-time video from 11 different
labyrinths throughout the world to form a virtual
11-circuit labyrinth thereby establishing a collective
sacred space that can be experienced by multiple
participants as a single labyrinth. |
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An interdisciplinary artist-researcher working with digital media and interactive technologies.
