Data, Technology, and Art

I am a social psychologist by training and I have taught the research core (statistics, research methods, and experimental psychology) at UVU since 2002. I also have a background in design and a long-standing interest in the arts. With my students I have conducted research projects in dance, architecture, landscape architecture, photography, and poetry.

I recently completed a sabbatical at the University of Utah, where I was enrolled in the Arts Technology Certificate Program as a way of developing new methods of data visualization and new connections between the arts and data science. I have collaborated on several creative projects in dance, where I have contributed video and motion capture, as well as interactive projections of spatial data derived from the dances. Along with Nichole Ortega of the UVU Department of Dance and Jacque Bell of the University of Utah Department of Theatre, I have developed a project called Dance Loops, which has received funding from a UVU Presidential Fellowship for Faculty Scholarship. This year long project, which will include students from several departments at UVU, involves two dancers and an offstage visualist, video and motion capture via a pair of Microsoft Kinects, and gestural control of projected playback of the dancers’ movements. See uvu.edu/danceloops for more information on this project.

I also recently worked with Jacque Bell to create a dance and technology piece called "Hello World" for Repertory Dance Theatre. This was part of their fall 2012 performance Embark, which was performed at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center in Salt Lake City on 04-06 October 2012.

I also have methodological interests in online data, data mining, quasi-experimental methods, and data visualization. I created on online course in SPSS for lynda.com, which you can preview here. More recently, I completed another course for lynda.com on interactive data visualization using the free programming environment Processing. You can preview that course here. I also have posted over 90 video tutorials on statistics and other topics on YouTube. These videos, which you can see here, have been viewed over half a million times by people from around the world.

Prior to my work in the arts and data science, I spent many years studying the psychological aspects of conflict and dispute resolution, particularly mediation and restorative justice.

I have two blogs that reflect my interests:

• DataLiteracy.com dispenses advice on data analysis, data visualization, and research methodology.
• ArtByBart.org is a chronicle of my sabbatical and of my work in creative coding.

Courses I Am Teaching Spring 2013

• Current Topics: Data Visualization
• Statistics (one hybrid section and one online section)

Other Courses I Have Taught

• Generative Art with Processing
• Introductory Psychology
• Research Methods
• Experimental Psychology
• Tests and Measurements
• Cognition
• Social Psychology
• Personality
• Lifespan Development
• Gender
• Human Sexuality
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, & the Arts
• SPSS

Education

• PhD, Social-Personality Psychology, 1999, City University of New York
• MPhil, Social-Personality Psychology, 1998, City University of New York
• MA, Psychology, 1996, Hunter College
• BS, Psychology, 1991, Brigham Young University

Creative Work

• Dance Loops [in preparation]. Dir. Barton Poulson. Chor. Nichole Ortega and Jacque Lynn Bell. In preparation for June 2013. Performance, video installation.
• Danco kaj la universala okulo: Danco 2 - Preter ordo. Barton Poulson. Williams Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT. 18-25 October, 2012. Digital print.
• Hello World. Dir. Barton Poulson. Chor. Jacque Lynn Bell. Perf. Repertory Dance Theatre. Embark, Repertory Dance Theatre, Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City, UT. Performed 04-06 October 2012. Performance, video installation.
• Dots and lines and dance and all of us. Dir. Barton Poulson. dig+it+art, the Arts Technology Interdisciplinary Capstone Project Show, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, 19 February 2012. Video installation, computer program.
• Pillows. Chor. Jacque Lynn Bell. Dir. Barton Poulson. Charette, Repertory Dance Theatre. Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center, Salt Lake City, UT, 11 February 2012. Performance, video installation.

Publications

• Banchero-Kelleher, A., Ortega, N., & Poulson, B. (2010). Dancing to democracy: An empirical evaluation of Helen Tamiris’ Dance for Walt Whitman as a motivator of civic and political involvement. The International Journal of the Arts in Society, 4, 315-325.
• Ortega, N., & Poulson, B. (2008). Dance made me a genius! Reflections on participation in high school dance. Journal of the Utah Academy of Arts, Letters, and Sciences, 85, 49-61.
• Poulson, B. (2008). Recreating relationships: The interpersonal implications of restorative justice for juvenile offenders and their victims. Journal of Law and Family Studies, 10, 161-171.
• Luna, E., & Poulson, B. (2006). Restorative justice in Federal sentencing: An unexpected benefit of Booker? McGeorge Law Review, 37, 787-818.
• Poulson, B. (2005). Interpersonal conflict and relational models theory: A structural approach to injustice. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 28, 8-21.
• Poulson, B. (2003). A third voice: A review of empirical research on the psychological outcomes of restorative justice. Utah Law Review, 2003, 167-203.
• Poulson, B., & Elton, K. (2002). Participants’ attitudes in the Utah juvenile victim-offender mediation program. Juvenile and Family Court Journal, 53, 37-45.