Fellow finalist Pete Cybriwsky graduated from UVA in 2019 with a computer science engineering degree and is a data artist also based in New York City. He works with commercial datasets and builds interactive art pieces.

“In the past, I’ve worked with different consumer apps like Spotify or Strava to make applications for their users to play with,†he said.

Cybriwsky’s piece, “Nebulae,†earned him the People’s Choice Award and was an honorable mention recipient in 2024’s competition. The interactive art piece relied on weather data, including temperature and air quality sensors in Charlottesville, to show how the local environment was changing in real time.

“I made the piece to be a little bit more forward-looking,†Cybriwsky said. “Data art is typically retrospective, where people analyze data over the course of 10 years, but I wanted this one to be living and kind of evolved.â€