Berkeley Geography
Fall 2021 Colloquium
September 22 | 3:30pm | 575 McCone
From Moses to Metaverse: The Role of Illusion in Environmental Representations
Greg Niemeyer
Professor for Media Innovation, Department of Art Practice, UC Berkeley
In this new talk, Niemeyer analyzes selected descriptions of fictional and real lands to explore cultural histories of what it means to be "true to nature". Focusing in particular on Courbet's Realism and his own work in air quality and data visualization, Greg Niemeyer questions the realism of data-driven representations.
If quantitative data can convey ever increasing and realistic detail about our environments, are we as receivers of that data capable of understanding it fully and taking meaningful action, or does our tendency to fictionalize our world continue to prevent us from seeing clearly what we are doing, what is happening to us, and where we are headed?