Introduction

How about an introduction?

Hello, I am Daniel Newman. I am entering the second year of my Digital Media M.S. program. My academic background can best be explained as an odd oscillation between biology and art. For my undergraduate at Providence College I earned a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Studio Art. After college, I worked as a laboratory technician by day but also managed to complete a certificate program in Natural Science Illustration at RISD by night. Unable to choose a career path like a normal person, I seem to have woven two of them together. Here at Drexel University, I hope to leverage my varied experiences and produce some really neat work.

If you would like to see my current creative portfolio, follow this link:
http://www.danieljoelnewman.com

While everyone was applying sunblock and grilling hamburgers this summer, I was spending most of my time searching through tomes of esoteric knowledge in search of a suitable digital media thesis project. I went through several hilariously bad iterations. 

At end I found myself returning to a previous interest of interpretive visualization, especially regard to the biological sciences. There are many processes in science that exist beyond our ability to physically see them. Molecules are smaller than the wavelength of visible light and so are entirely invisible to us. Galaxies exist beyond the physical and temporal scales that we typically find comfortable. There were once entirely alien ecosystems full of organisms on this planet that no longer exist. By using digital tools, in my case digital animation, interpretive visualization attempts to make these processes accessible. One can't make them truly visible, but one can hopefully convey important theories, concepts, relationships, and truths that would otherwise be obscure.

The example that I continue to lean on for inspiration is XVIVO and BioVisions' 2005 animation Inner Life of the Cell. Using digital animation, the complexity and dynamism of cellular machinery is explored in what was at the time a uniquely cinematic way. Important biological truths about scale and molecular interaction were made clear to the viewer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJyUtbn0O5Y