Stanford University will be hosting the “Art and Technology of Science Visualizations” exhibit at Wallenberg Hall on May 18th.  It will highlight the growing genre of science maps based on large scale datasets.

Places & Spaces highlights the rapidly growing genre of science maps based on large scale data sets. “The art, science and understanding of visualization technologies and their application have enabled new insights about complex issues to be shared with broad communities,” states Media X Executive Director Charles House.  “This new exhibit has turned Wallenberg Hall into a gallery setting that complements the world class visualization work on the Stanford campus in campus labs such as the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCI) and the Spatial History Project.

It consists of both the physical exhibition and an online counterpart at http://www.scimaps.org .  Every hear 10 new maps are added to the exhibit, resulting in 100 maps by 2014.  This is the fifth year.  See the full press release after the break.

For immediate release

May 8, 2009

Contact: Martha Russell, Associate Director, Media X at Stanford University: 650-723-1616. [email protected],

Art And Technology Of Science Visualizations Celebrated On May 18th At Wallenberg Hall By Media X At Stanford University

STANFORD, CALIFORNIA, May 8, 2009 — Media X at Stanford University is pleased to announce that the broadly praised international exhibition, Places & Spaces – Mapping Science, will be exhibited in Wallenberg Hall from April 20 to December 31, 2009 with a seminar, an opening reception, discussion and tour on Monday May 18th from 4 pm to 6:30 pm.

Places & Spaces highlights the rapidly growing genre of science maps based on large scale data sets. “The art, science and understanding of visualization technologies and their application have enabled new insights about complex issues to be shared with broad communities,” states Media X Executive Director Charles House.  “This new exhibit has turned Wallenberg Hall into a gallery setting that complements the world class visualization work on the Stanford campus in campus labs such as the Human Computer Interaction Lab (HCI) and the Spatial History Project.” http://hci.stanford.edu/people/ http://spatialhistory.stanford.edu/

Curated by Dr. Katy Börner, director of the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at Indiana University and her colleague, Elisha F. Hardy, Places & Spaces was created to inspire cross-disciplinary discussion on how best to track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale. According to Börner “This exhibit introduces people to the power of maps to navigate physical spaces as well as abstract spaces of our collective scholarly knowledge.”

The exhibition has two components. The physical component allows close visual inspection through high-quality prints. The online counterpart at http://scimaps.org/ provides links to a selected series of maps and their makers along with detailed explanations of why these maps work.

Each year 10 new maps are added, which will result in 100 maps total by 2014. Marking its fifth year traveling around the world, the 40 maps will be joined by the “Fifth Iteration” of the Places & Spaces exhibit. Media X at Stanford University is proud to sponsor and debut 10 new maps based on this year’s theme, “Science Maps for Science Policy Makers,” on May 18.

Media X will host a reception and tour of the Places & Spaces exhibition in Wallenberg Hall from 5 pm to 6:30 pm, immediately following a seminar on Visualization Convergence for Collective, Connective and Distributed Intelligence by Bonnie DeVarco, Media X Distinguished Visiting Scholar.  The seminar is part of the 2009 Media X Sun Microsystems Spring Seminar Series, http://mediax.stanford.edu/spring09_seminar_series.html Both the seminar and the reception are open to the Stanford academic community and the general public.

The reception will include a description by Stanford Computer Science Assistant Professor Jeffrey Heer of new visualization initiatives underway at Stanford, and his graduate students will present excerpts of their exciting new work in data visualization in a featured poster session.

Live teleconferences with Dr. Börner and several of the mapmakers themselves will introduce the new iteration, “Science Maps for Science Policy Makers.” The physical exhibit is open to the public Monday through Friday from 8:00 am until 8:00 pm. The full schedule of Media X Spring Seminars and workshops offered in the Summer Institute at Wallenberg Hall can be seen here: http://mediax.stanford.edu/WSI/schedule.html.

Relevant Web URLs:


About Media X

Media X is a membership program of the HSTAR Institute – Human Sciences Technology Advanced Research – at Stanford University. Programs and activities of Media X bridge academic and industrial research at the intersection of people and information technologies. The Wallenberg Learning Center is the premiere international teaching facility on the Stanford campus. Housed in the Main Quad, it is equipped with multiple high-tech classrooms and lecture halls.

Directions to Wallenberg Hall: http://wallenberg.stanford.edu/top/location.html

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