FlashBrighton: Visualising Complexity August 4, 2009

Gather round children, as we tell you a ghoulish story about science, complexity and goblins!

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away across the great ocean, there lived a beautiful and clever princess called Kristin Henry. The land where she lived was vast and bounteous, but it was beset by cruelty and confusion. Dark, twisted forests of information covered the landscape, and were haunted by evil 'Spam' goblins. No one dared venture into the spooky woods and maps were unknown.

One day, whilst Kristin was walking in the royal palace, she had an idea. As a child Kristin had been schooled in 'communicating complex scientific information within intuitive user experiences' by her kindly father, the King of Hi-Vis. She wondered whether the life cycle of the forest itself could provide the framework for navigation through the tangled undergrowth. She fetched a golden computer from beneath her 20 mattresses and mapped out a visualisation of the life cycle of malaria, and a computational art piece called 'The Color Of Spam'. All the people rejoiced, for Kristin's clear and informative visualisations had brought light and understanding to the the dark and twisted forests of information that surrounded them on all sides, and a great banquet was thrown in her honour.

When the feast was over, the court jester Sebastian le Delisle shook his shaky bell-stick thing and said 'Princess Kristin, wilst thou cometh to the court of FlashBrighton and show the folk there assembled your clear and informative visualisations, yo-ho-tee-hee-ha-ha [cough]?'

The princess was overjoyed and gaily replied 'Oh jester I shall! On Tuesday the 4th of June, at 7pm, at the Werks in Hove'.

Official Website: http://flashbrighton.org