Mary Neubauer
Working at the art/science intersection, Mary Neubauer has shown her sculpture and digital images internationally. Recent exhibitions include Carbonato di Calcio, Forte di Marmi, IT, Metamorphic Resonance, Pietrasanta, Italy; Push Comes to Shove, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ; Salon Culture et Jeux Mathématiques, Paris, France; MWX, Museums and the Web, Los Angeles, CA; Encircling the World: Contemporary Art, Science, and the Sublime, MCAD, Boston, MA; Mind2Machine2Material, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ ; Virtually Solid, Florida State College Jacksonville; Marble Codes, Giardino Villa Strozzi, Florence, IT ; 3d Glitch, University of Sunderland/Manchester, UK/ Croatia; Momentum: Women/Art/Technology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ; Beyond the Buzz: New Forms, Realities, and Environments in Digital Sculpture, Academy of Arts and Design, Minneapolis, MN; Transposed Tactile, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ; The Weight of the World: A Contemporary Art Exhibition of Affect and Reason, Institute for Humanities Research (IHR), Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ; Thoreau Center for Sustainability, San Francisco, CA; the Institute for Women and Art, Rutgers University, NJ ; MCAD, Minneapolis, MN; Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi; and Beijing Today Art Museum, China.
Neubauer has work in many private and public art collections throughout the country. She regularly exhibits with Ars Mathematica, TeleSculpture, the Women's Environmental Artist's Directory, and Art-Science Collaborations. She was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, a Fulbright Fellow (Cambridge, UK), and a Ford Fellow. Recent projects include four years with the Digital Stone Project, Garfagnana Innovazione (robotic carving) in Tuscany, Italy; the Arctic Circle Expeditionary Residency, Anderson Ranch Center for the Arts, the Tyrone Guthrie Center, Ireland, the John Michael Kohler Arts and Industry Iron Foundry Residency, and the Serde Iron Residency in Latvia. Additionally, she has given talks and presentations throughout the country and overseas with a focus on data visualization. She has completed numerous public artworks in the western states, and in collaboration with media artist Todd Ingalls, Neubauer has developed a series of interactive sculptural public artworks that respond to viewers with evolving light and sound. She is a President's Professor in sculpture at Arizona State University and head of the Art Foundry at ASU's Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.
Education
MFA, Sculpture, Indiana University-Bloomington, IN 1981
BFA, Sculpture, Colorado State University-Fort Collins 1973
Expertise Areas
Area of study
Double Vessel
Starfog
Sounder I
Artist statement
My artistic processes focus on the hidden aspects of our surroundings, emphasizing artistic and tactile ways of understanding global and metropolitan functions based on data visualization. New ways of seeing our natural and built environments are made possible through the dimensional, visually appealing expression of the many streams of numbers that constantly input from our environment. An expanded awareness of systems, cities, timelines, and the rhythms of the larger world is evoked. It is my hope that these data-responsive images will serve as an aid to a more deeply felt deeper understanding of the complex attributes of the environments in which we live today. My work is designed to provide a highly visual interpretation of the behavior of data through time, while remaining true to the underlying input driving the visuals.
I have had the opportunity to work with municipalities, corporations, environmental agencies, individuals, and industry in a number of data visualization projects. I have visualized rainfall and water usage, river and tidal flows, geophysics, environmental pollutants, decibel levels, metal stream variations, air traffic, pedestrian flow, solar storms, telecommunications data, and many other topics in an ongoing series of exhibitions and projects. As well, I have collaborated with composer Todd Ingalls, on sonification of data, and have completed several public art projects involving these data flow topics both individually and as part of a team. My work allows me to engage directly with the community and interact with specialists from many different disciplines.
My data visualization work has a broad capability for variation. It responds to incoming data through textural variation, color, feeling tone, and illumination. The work can be produced as 2D imagery, sculptural form, surface maps, animations, and responsive public art. I am working creating visualizations that are accessible anywhere, and are adaptable to many new media, including websites and portable digital formats. Projections of the work allow viewers to travel around in an experiential way, through brightly colored numeric worlds and ongoing virtual flybys. 3D models and prototypes of the data make long-term cycles and variations tactile and tangible, while prints and renderings offer a more contemplative view. The artworks are meant to express long-term patterns in global phenomena, enhance sensitivity to the invisibly functioning aspects of our surroundings, and offer an expanded definition of sculpture. This work lends clarity to the grand cycles of nature and human activity, while revealing fresh perspectives on day-to-day metropolitan life. The results are amazing and beautiful, often echoing forms and patterns found in nature.