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The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Graduate School has announced the winners of the 2020 Visualizing Research Impacts (VRI) competition, which encourages SIUE scholars to share the impacts of their research through images.

This year’s recipients are Abbey Hepner, assistant professor and head of photography and digital arts in the Department of Art and Design, and John Savoie, PhD, professor in the Department of English Language and Literature. Their works were selected from a pool of student and faculty entries that depicted a diversity of disciplines throughout the University.

• Most Creative Representation of Research Impact: “Atmosphere” by Hepner
• Best Representation of Research Impact: “Lemniscate” by Savoie

“Our alumni judges come from diverse disciplines and always enjoy the opportunity to review the range of VRI entries,” said Susan Morgan, PhD, associate dean for research and graduate studies. “They were uniformly impressed with the caliber of these two images.”

Hepner and Savoie each received a $1,500 award to further support their research and creative activities. Additionally, both recipients will be featured in the Graduate School’s annual Research and Creative Activities magazine.

“Atmosphere” is a part of the series “Optogenetic Cybernetic Translations,” in which Hepner investigates the artist and scientist as translators of data that illuminate the connections existing in the broader world.

Hepner’s collaborator is scientist Mike Avery, PhD, who researches optogenetics, a technique that involves the use of light to manipulate brain neurons. Using images from Avery’s lab, Hepner explored how a computer interprets brain scans, creating metaphors for what the future may hold as technology continues to infiltrate the fields of art and science.

“The results of this interpretation included an aurora, fireflies, bioluminescence, rust or texture, light, and military light vision,” said Hepner. “I paired each brain scan with its corresponding computer translation, resulting in interesting metaphors between cognition and a world full of beautiful, or potentially frightening, phenomenon. By allowing our collaborative work to be interpretated by a third party, we are embracing the fact that our work is larger than ourselves and never wholly in our control.”

As a teacher of imaginative literature, a significant part of Savoie’s research and creative activities comprises poetry writing. In “Lemniscate,” he has taken the idea of synergizing visuals into his own designs to craft the back cover of Sehnsucht, his upcoming book manuscript.

“Connoisseurs of calculus will relish the paradoxical Gabriel’s Horn, or Torricelli’s Trumpet, at the mysterious intersection of the finite and infinite, of time and eternity,” said Savoie. “However, any intelligent reader will easily engage the other expressions and appreciate how the composition as a whole magnifies the graceful integral sign: the curl of mask and beads in the upper right, the slender descent of words down the middle, and the balancing cluster of ‘math’ in the lower left.”

By displacing the customary back cover blurbs, Savoie’s 3D visual poem comes to life beyond the flat page, inviting the reader to enter and explore the pages within.

Photos: (Upper Right) - Most Creative Representation of Research Impact: “Atmosphere” by Abbey Hepner, assistant professor and head of photography and digital arts in the Department of Art and Design.

(Lower Right) - Best Representation of Research Impact: “Lemniscate” by John Savoie, PhD,  professor in the Department of English Language and Literature.