Ruth West is a creative technologist bridging big data, visualization, sonification, virtual and augmented, reality, 3D fabrication, and social and mobile media with domains such as neuroscience, genomics, astronomy, urban ecology, microbiome, entertainment and digital remix culture. She creates works with multiple entry points that can exist concurrently as aesthetic experiences, cultural interventions or entertainment and serve as the basis for artistically-impelled scientific inquiry and tools. This results in technology R&D, novel artworks, large-scale public engagement and entertainment experiences, new knowledge and insight, cross-disciplinary educational and research opportunities and industry-academic-community partnerships.
She is developing the concept and practice of DataRemix a reappropriation and recombination practice blending digital remix culture and big data to create novel associations and experiences. . Receiving both grant and industry sponsorship her work and has been presented or featured in SIGGRAPH, ACM / Eurographics Expressive, WIRED Magazine’s NextFest, PEROT Museum of Nature and Science, UCLA Fowler Museum, CAA, Ingenuity Festival Cleveland, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, FILE 09 Sao Paulo, IEEE VR, Mobisys, IS&T SPIE, IEEE ICIP, the American Journal of Human Genetics, Genomics, Leonardo, LEA, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, NPR’s The Connection, NY Times, Genome News Network, AMINIMA and Artweek.
Professor and Director, xREZ Art + Science Lab, University of North Texas
An interdisciplinary researcher and creative practitioner, Ruth is cross-appointed in the College of Visual Arts and Design (Design and New Media), College of Information (Library and Information Sciences), College of Arts and Sciences (Biological Sciences), College of Engineering (Computer Science). Prior affiliations include: UCSD Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA)/Calit2, UCLA CENS (NSF Center for Embedded Networked Sensing), NCMIR (National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research), UCLA Design | Media Arts, and Cedars-Sinai Health System.