About

Ruth West is an artist-scientist — a creative catalyst. She is a creative technologist bridging big data‚ visualization‚ sonification‚ virtual and augmented‚ reality‚ 3D fabrication‚ and social and mobile media with domains such as neuroscience‚ genomics‚ astronomy‚ urban ecology‚ microbiome‚ entertainment and digital remix culture.

West directs the xREZ Art + Science Lab located in the UNT Art Building and is a professor at UNT who is cross-appointed in three of the university's colleges: 1) College of Visual Art and Design in New Media Art and Design; 2) College of Engineering in Computer Science; College of Music, Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia; and 3) College of Arts and Sciences, Biological Sciences. 

She creates works with multiple entry points that can exist concurrently as aesthetic experiences‚ cultural interventions, or entertainment and serve as the basis for artistically-impelled scientific inquiry and tools. This results in technology R&D‚ novel artworks‚ large-scale public engagement and entertainment experiences‚ new knowledge and insight‚ cross-disciplinary educational and research opportunities and industry-academic-community partnerships.

She is developing the concept and practice of DataRemix, a reappropriation and recombination practice blending digital remix culture and big data to create novel associations and experiences. Receiving both grant and industry sponsorship, her work has been presented or featured in SIGGRAPH‚ ACM / Eurographics Expressive‚ WIRED Magazine’s NextFest‚ PEROT Museum of Nature and Science‚ UCLA Fowler Museum‚ CAA‚ Ingenuity Festival Cleveland‚ Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery‚ FILE 09 Sao Paulo‚ IEEE VR‚ Mobisys‚ IS&T SPIE‚ IEEE ICIP‚ the American Journal of Human Genetics‚ Genomics‚ Leonardo‚ LEA‚ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences‚ NPR’s The Connection‚ NY Times‚ Genome News Network‚ AMINIMA and Artweek.