UIC research shines bright in Art on the Mart

An artistic take on human lungs, with bronchi squiggling outward like a root system. Dark matter painted like pearlescent icicles against a Stygian sky. A marble blue-and-green Earth viewed from outer space. Hurricane Katrina's swirling vortex.

Stroll the Chicago Riverwalk some evening this fall and you may see UIC research featured in Art on The Mart's latest projection: "Where data becomes light: The beauty of scientific visualization." The light show includes scientific visualizations contributed by UIC and Argonne National Laboratory. It will run Thursdays through Sundays, starting at 7:30 p.m., until Nov. 15.

All 31 images were created for functional research, but that doesn't mean they aren't art.

"Art on the Mart is an incredible venue designed to share art with the community," said School of Design professor Daria Tsoupikova, who is co-leading the project with Michael Papka, the Warren S. McCulloch Professor of Computer Science and a senior scientist/distinguished fellow at Argonne National Laboratory.

Papka first had the idea for this project at Tsoupikova's 2022 Art on the Mart installation, "Chicago Design Through the Decades."

"I thought to myself, we should show science here," Papka said of the Mart's 2.5-acre façade, visible to diners, boaters and sightseers along the Chicago River. "What a great venue for outreach to the Chicago community."

Since 2018, Art on the Mart has freely showcased contemporary art by virtuosos near and far. This time, the scientific visualizations tell a story as they roll across the Mart in 7 minutes, starting with abstract mathematical concepts turned into illustrations. The scale shifts to atoms and molecules before expanding to the human body, the planet and, finally, the solar system.

"Nothing that we show is AI," Tsoupikova said. "It's all real data. It's physics, astrophysics, cosmology, biology, the human body and mathematics, all conveyed in the most beautiful way."

The visualizations were rendered by researchers from the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and the UIC College of Engineering's Electronic Visualization Laboratory, Papka's alma mater, which he directs. Tsoupikova is a research faculty member in the lab, from which many Argonne team members graduated.

"It's a very special place," Papka said of the laboratory, which famously contributed special effects to the first "Star Wars" movie in 1976. He said the laboratory and the Art on the Mart projection signify the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly between design and the sciences.

Papka and Tsoupikova co-chair UIC's computer science and design major - the first program of its kind in the U.S. - which graduated its first cohort last spring. Students in this program contributed to the Art in the Mart installation.

"I'm ecstatic," Papka said. "About the program and the projection. I'm hoping someone walks by and says, 'Oh, what's that?' and then learns more about art, or science, or both, as a result - maybe at UIC!"