Artist guides flock through birding, data analysis (via The Lafayette Newspaper)

Excerpt from “Artist guides flock through birding, data analysis” via The Lafayette:

Photo by Tim Ayres for The Lafayette. Jer Thorp led a hike through Merrill Creek Reservoir as part of a data art project.

“We like to think of the natural world as something sacred and pre-natural that we can appreciate without thinking very hard about,” Thorp said. “Through data collection, we find the external players that are changing the world we care so much about. It’s one thing to say a species is dying; it’s another to ask why.”

Data artists create abstract visual representations of data to evoke an aesthetic experience with collected information. Thorp led three Lafayette College students and three faculty members through a data art project, in which participants represented yearly visitation habits for birds at Merrill Creek Reservoir outside Phillipsburg through a postcard that they then emailed to family and friends.

“Through data art, we see tangible evidence of violence and exploitation but also of rejuvenation and conservation,” Thorp said. Read the full article via The Lafayette here.