Treemap art project featured at the Keck Center

Ben Shneiderman's treemap art project Every Algorithm has Art in It will be a featured exhibition at the National Academies Keck Center in Washington, DC. The opening night, October 16th, will feature panelists on the subject of Technology and Creativity, including Jon Froehlich, who will talk about wearable technologies.

When asked about Shneiderman's work, Froehlich observes that "Ben's Treemap algorithm is a type of "space-filling" visualization that cleverly uses proportionally sized rectangles to reveal relationships in hierarchical data. Originally developed for visualizing hard drive data, it is now one of the most popular specialized visualization algorithms in computer science (and beyond)." Froehlich also emphasizes that Shneiderman's work "showcas[es] how aesthetic choices in a treemap's color, aspect ratio, line widths, etc. can create beautiful artistic patterns--visualizations that are inspired by artists and, in their own way, become art themselves."

Shneiderman’s work recently has been in the subject of a well-received article on Quartz as well. In order to learn more about the rationale behind treemap project one may read a small eponymously titled volume with an introduction by JD Talasek. He remarks that treemaps represent a "need to investigate and promote the human interface with technology and information...exploring how aesthetic meaning is created and conveyed[...]."

For more information about the Exhibition, please read the CMNS news release.