Neon Tommy and the Daily Trojan ran articles about the Sept. 24 Journalism Forum that welcomed Aaron Koblin, head of the Data Arts Groups at Google and this year’s Innovator in Residence at the USC Annenberg Innovation Lab.

According to Neon Tommy, Koblin’s work relies on turning data in art.

He defined Data Art “as the way in which humanity and culture is enhanced by technology. According to him, data art is a representation, simulation and interconnection of data.”

He discussed many of his personal projects, as well as his work for Google, where one of his recent projects was an interactive music video for Arcade Fire.

“It’s refreshing and invigorating to come back to an academic environment and see what the students are working on,” Koblin said. “This is a nice opportunity to self-reflect and get different perspectives on things I’ve worked on from both faculty and students.”

The Neon Tommy article said that “the take away from the talk was that interface is a powerful narrative device. [Koblin] believes in collaboration in art. He said that through his projects he has learnt about the creativity of people, how people want to be treated and that the more you constraint the creativity of people, the more they push against the boundaries.”

Read the Neon Tommy article here. Read the Daily Trojan article here.