I was quite nervous, but also intrigued about this week’s group project on visualizing environmental change. The opportunity to showcase creative work on such a large scale was exciting, but I also felt pressure not to “waste” it.

Working in a group is quite unfamiliar to me, so I wasn’t completely sure how to act at first. On day two of the project, I realized we needed to stop just discussing ideas and start taking action. I took responsibility for organizing our progress, making a list of everything we wanted to achieve, and prioritizing tasks from highest to lowest. Then, I asked the group which tasks they wanted to work on.

Our group was given river flooding as our data source, and we decided to represent it through flowing veins acting as rivers. Skinny veins indicated low flooding levels, while thicker veins represented high flooding. If a river had gone tidal, blood clots would appear. However, after coding for this, I discovered that out of the 113 rivers in our dataset, only one had gone tidal.

It was incredible to see both the demos and our final work displayed on the 360 screen in the Havers Rd Lab. Immersive art is something I’m drawn to and experiencing it again, as part of my degree, was a great feeling. I’ve been to Frameless in London and Moco Museum in Amsterdam, both of which had amazing immersive art exhibitions. While I knew we couldn’t create something on that level in just a week, I was excited to see what we could achieve with this great piece of tech.

During this project, I learned that it’s fulfilling to listen to others and help bring their creative vision to life, even if their ideas aren’t exactly what I want. However, next time I work in a group, I hope to speak up more and push for my ideas.

Pictures of our final outcome: