Seed Visualization
Ben Fry: Deprocess. Computer code visualization
Ben Fry: Isometricblocks DNA visualization
Ben Fry: genome valence visualization.
The amount of information our society generates is difficult to quantify, but one estimation holds that we now create more data each year than was produced in all prior human history. Generating actionable knowledge from this information is a critical design challenge with substantial economic, political and intellectual consequence.
Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Seed Visualization helps companies and governments find solutions to clearly communicate complex data sets and information to various stakeholders. The unit’s research arm, the Phyllotaxis Lab, works to advance the field of data visualization through basic research and experimental design work.
Seed Visualization introduced its first project in January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The unit was commissioned by the World Economic Forum to visualize the global agenda as reflected through the program of the Annual Meeting.
Seed Visualization is headed by Ben Fry. Fry received his doctoral degree from the Aesthetics + Computation Group at the MIT Media Laboratory under John Maeda, and completed postdoctoral work with Eric Lander at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard where he focused on developing tools for visualizing genetic data. During the 2006-2007 academic year, he was the Nierenberg Chair of Design for the Carnegie Mellon School of Design.
With Casey Reas of UCLA, he developed Processing, an open source programming environment for teaching computational design and sketching interactive media software that won a Golden Nica from the Prix Ars Electronica in 2005. The project also received the 2005 Interactive Design prize from the Tokyo Type Director’s Club. In 2006, Fry received a New Media Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation to support the project. In 2007, Reas and Fry published Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists with MIT Press. Processing 1.0 was released in November 2008, and is used by tens of thousands of people every week.
His work has shown at MoMA, the Whitney Biennial and the Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial. Other pieces have appeared at Ars Electronica and in the film Minority Report.
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