Digital Art and Philosophy #2The Design Aesthetics of Meaning-Making: Information Visualization

Melanie SwanUniversity of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Gallery

Syllabus: http://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA

Image: Emese Szorenyi

Agenda: Info Viz

• Short review of Digital Art and Philosophy• What is Information Visualization?• Tools and Examples• Philosophical issues in information

visualization• The Readings• Deleuze and the Diagram• Conclusion

2

Digital Art is anything involving computers and art

3

Sub-categories of Digital Art

4

Virtual Reality, Gaming

BioArt, Generative Art Identity, the Future

Information Visualization

Philosophy of Digital Art

5

• Perception– Dominic Lopes: Interactivity is

related to deeply evocative viewer responses, complex cognitive behavior, and the process of perception

– Mark Hansen: The virtual image lacks any material autonomy of its own and is produced by the viewer. Virtual image production is the process by which information is made perceivable

What is Information Visualization?

6

Classic Info Viz Examples

7

What is Information Visualization?• Visual representation of abstract data - Wikipedia

– Impossible to comprehend big data directly• Scientific analysis tool that has become artistic

practice• “Visualization is a form of ‘computer-aided seeing’

information in data” – The Philosophy of Information (Floridi, 2011)

• Full-fledged field; SIGGRAPH conference• Science, art, both, something new? • Philosophical issues?

8

History of Information Visualization

9

Timeline charts (Joseph Priestley, 1765)

History of Information Visualization

10The bar chart (William Playfair, 1786)

History of Information Visualization

11

Trade-balance time-series chart, William Playfair, Commercial and Political Atlas, 1786

History of Information Visualization

12Trade-balance time-series chart (William Playfair, 1786)

Classic Info Viz Examples

13Napoleon’s March (Campaign of 1812)

Edward Tufte (1970s-1990s) information display, data-rich illustrations, information design, visual literacy, visual communication of information

Classic Info Viz Examples

14

200 years that changed the worldGapminder (Hans Rosling, 2009) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPt8ElTQMIg

Classic Info Viz Examples

http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/

Info viz is rapidly evolving

16

2009 2012

21c Data Literacy and Info Viz 2.0

• Level 1: basic plotting for ordinal (qualitative) and quantitative data– Bar chart: simple quantitative and ordinal values – Scatterplot: multiple quantitative data values– Shape-based plot chart for multiple ordinal values

• Level 2: sophisticated visualizations– Small multiples– Bullet charts– Sparklines– Horizon charts– Interactivity

17

The New Info Viz Tools: Small Multiples

18

Plotting several similar charts to highlight differences in one variable

The New Info Viz Tools: Bullet Charts

19

The New Info Viz Tools: Sparklines

20

The New Info Viz Tools: Horizon Chart

21Space efficient way to analyze and compare multiple time series data sets

The New Info Viz Tools: Real-Time

22

http://square.github.com/cubism/

The New Info Viz Tools: Processing.org, Tableau, Visual.ly, D3

23

D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data

http://www.creativeapplications.net/news/processing-org-exhibition-now-curated-by-fv-news/

NodeXL

The New Info Viz Tools: Processing.org

24

The New Info Viz Tools: Internet-of-Things Sensors

25

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/the-internet-of-things-infographic/Meetups: Sensored (San Francisco 2/25), Internet of Things (Hacker DoJo 2/20)

Not just tech gadgets but everyday objects and microsensors

Source: Swan, M. Sensor Mania! The Internet of Things, Wearable Computing, Objective Metrics, and the Quantified Self 2.0. J Sens Actuator Netw 2012, 1(3), 217-253.

The New Info Viz Tools: D3.js javascript library

26

The New Info Viz Tools: Gephi social network graphing

27

Contemporary Sleep Tracking Dataviz: Is it Art?

28

Zeo

FitBit Lark

University Data Viz Departments

29

Philosophical issues arising in information visualization

• Philosophy of information– Measurement; entropy, complexity, thermodynamics,

malleable spacetimes• Representing the unrepresented (accuracy?)• Form vs. function debate• Aesthetics and authenticity• Retaining humanity, shifting role of humanity • Subject/object debate: room for freedom,

imperfection, serendipity• Justice and inequality: data processing inequalities,

voice plurality & inclusivity?• Shift in relationship of humans to the world,

environment, and resources30

Reading: Aesthetics of Information Visualization by Warren Sack (2013)

• Philosophy branches: metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics

• Aesthetics is concerned with sensation and perception. Aesthetic qualities:– Beauty: pleasing to the senses– Sublime: loftiness, excellence, inspiration; sublime

is the name given to what is absolutely great (Critique of Judgment (Kant, 1790))

– Mimesis: imitation; projecting oneself outside oneself and acting as though one had really entered another character (The Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche, 1872))

– Uncanny: beyond normal/expected; plays on fears (The Uncanny (Sigmund Freud, 1919)) 31

Aesthetic Qualities and Digital Art• Anti-Sublime Ideal (user-friendly); Sublime is

for artists; anti-sublime is for non-artists • Uncanny: “Powerful visualization projects are

often uncanny in aesthetic “

32

Not anti-sublime: Every Icon (John Simon, 1998)

Uncanny: Carnivore (Alex Galloway and the Radical Software Group, 2002)

Lyotard on Kant and the Sublime• Sublime: loftiness, vastness, excellence, inspiration • Two kinds of sublime experience

– Mathematically sublime - an object strikes the mind in such a way that we cannot take it in as a whole (ex: Pyramids in Egypt)

– Dynamically sublime - the mind recoils at an object whose weight, force, scale could crush us (ex: hurricane)

• The sublime is a crisis where we realize the inadequacy of the imagination and reason to each other. This is the differend; the straining of the mind at the edges of itself and at the edges of its conceptuality.

33Source: Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime (Jean-Francois Lyotard, 1991)

The Sublime in Digital Art?

34

Listening Post : Real-Time Data Responsive Environment (Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, 2001)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD36IajCz6ASource: The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation by Tegan Bristow

The Sublime in Digital Art?

35

Translator II: Grower (Sabrina Raaf, 2004)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3b9LlAYqAwSource: The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation by Tegan Bristow

The Sublime in Digital Art?

36

The Cloud Harp (Nicholas Reeves and the NXIO GESTATIO Design Lab, 1997)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyyCIDsRB1o, http://vimeo.com/5235502Source: The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation by Tegan Bristow

Digital Art and the Sublime

• Sublime: loftiness, vastness, excellence, inspiration

• Kant’s sublime - object so big cannot take it in as a whole, could crush us

• Lyotard’s differend - the straining of the mind at the edges of itself and conceptuality

37

2001

2004

1997

Digital Art more like Conceptual Art?• Conforms more to concept than aesthetics• Justification: Kant - distinction between aesthetic and

cognitive judgments (Critique of Judgment, 1790) and Sol LeWitt - the aim of the artist is to give the viewers information (1966)

• Paradox: Information is bureaucratic and radical– Digital art and computing techniques are bureaucratic– Infoviz Art exploring opposition to bureaucracy – themes of

governance, self-representation, the body politic

38

Troika (Lisa Jevbratt, 2002)

3D Dataviz: Smiley Radio Telescope

Smiley Telescope, PARI, Balsam Grove, NC USA

Smiley in Second Life

Smiley Virtual Control RoomReal-time radio data received into 3D graph

Euclidean Visualization Environment

39

3D Dataviz: Cheminformatic-Assisted Image Array (CAIA)

8 images24 meters

36 meters 12 images

40Gus Rosania, University of Michigan - The Rosania Research Group studies the microscopic transport properties of small drug-like molecules inside cells

3D Dataviz: real-time statistics

41

3D Dataviz: Second Life exhibits

Real-time LAX airport traffic

Real-time NOAA weather dataSAP airline booking application

Svarga Artificial Life Ecosystem

42

Reading: Authenticity and Computer Art (Margaret Boden, 2006)

43

• Examines claim: “computer art is not authentic”– Authentic: genuine, trustworthy, credible

• Artworld’s philosophical assumptions of authentic art1. Art must spring from human agency2. Art must be grounded in emotion3. Art must involve the communication of experience4. Art must be honest 5. Art must be unique6. Art must be transformational

• Argument 1: Aesthetic flaws• Argument 2: Computer art is not possible

Reading: Authenticity and Computer Art (Margaret Boden, 2006)

44

Evolutionary Art and Computers (Stephen Todd and William Latham (1992))http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN6ngsckRZs

Argument 2: Computer Art is not possible

45

• Emotion: computers are not emotional agents– Even if programs model human emotion and engage the emotion of

viewers/listeners, the artwork is not genuine (Hofstadter)• Experience: art is the communication of human experience

– Even if the work evokes emotion, this would evaporate if known that it is a digital art work (O’hear)

• Counter: complex self-reflective mental architecture• Conclusion: authenticity of computer art remains contentious

but can’t be disproven

Guernica (Picasso, 1937)

Reading: Authenticity and Computer Art (Margaret Boden, 2006)

46

David Cope, UCSC, Emmy/EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) and Emily Howell, creative original music; Chopin-like mazurkas

http://www.psmag.com/culture/triumph-of-the-cyborg-composer-8507/

“I knew all 50-60 of the Chopin mazurkas very well. I listened to the Emmy mazurka. The piece did not seem in any way plagiarized. It was new, it was unmistakably Chopin-like in spirit, and it was not emotionally empty. I was truly shaken. How could emotional music be coming out of a program that had never heard a note, never lived a moment of life, never had any emotions whatsoever? Emmy was threatening my oldest and most deeply cherished beliefs about music being the ultimate inner sanctum of the human spirit, the last thing that would tumble in AI's headlong rush toward thought, insight, and creativity” - (Hofstadter 2001 in Boden 2006)

Does knowing it is Digital Art matter?

• Is it important to know that it is digital art? – For experience? For authenticity? How does

authenticity relate to experience?• Is a digital artwork inauthentic if it is not

known that it is a digital artwork? – Does the experience or the work of art

become less authentic?– Does it matter how a work of art was

created?• Is there a responsibility to disclose digital art?

47

Digital Art is anything involving computers and art

48

Distinguishability of Computer Art and the Uncanny Valley

49

• Is it “art” or “not art” if we can tell it was computer-made?

Deleuze and the DiagramAesthetic Threads in Visual Organization

• Magnum opus: Difference and Repetition, 1968, traditional metaphysics topics, difference in itself

• A Thousand Plateaus, 1980, (Deleuze and Guattari), innovative new concepts

50

French PhilosopherGilles Deleuze

1925-1995

51

Deleuzian Model of the World

PhilosophyConcerned with: Understanding

Art, economics, politicsConcerned with: Experience

Concepts

Qualitative

QuantitativeScience and technology

Concerned with: Characterization

Abstraction

Figuration

Enumeration

Concepts: rhizome, body without organs, molar, molecular, smooth, striated, figural, machinic, faciality, deterritorialization, haecceity, nomadology, diagram

Deleuze’s Concept of the Diagram• The diagram is a way of thinking that

bypasses language. Examples: musical notation, mathematics

• A diagram or abstract machine is a map of relations between forces, of intensity. Relations take place within the assemblages they produce. (Deleuze (Foucault, pp 37, 44))

• Diagrams have no intrinsic connection with visual representation. The critical part is how the diagrams are used in practice. Matter can generate its own form (morphogenesis) and does not need form to be externally imposed. The nature of reality can only be grasped during the process of morphogenesis. (Difference and Repitition (Deleuze, 1994) in Deleuze, Diagrams, and the Genesis of Form - (De Landa 2000))

52

Information Visualization

53

• Concluding Frame: not whether info viz is digital art or not but sense of being in a new era that includes big data, computing, design, and aesthetics

• Essay question: is big data sublime?

Agenda and Upcoming Sessions2/12 - Introduction "What is digital art?" and what philosophers say about it.2/19 - The Design Aesthetics of Meaning-Making: Information Visualization.2/26 - Democratized Creativity: Performance, Music, Virtual Reality, Gaming.

“Performance is the Thing” (Dzifa Benson, 2006)“Videogames and Aesthetics” (Grant Tavinor, 2006)

3/5 - Natural Aesthetics: Generative Art, SynBio, Biomimicry, CrowdArt.3/12 - Portable ArtTech: Identity, Fashion, Wearable Electronics, the Future.

54

Comments and Feedback: m@MelanieSwan.com

Digital Art and Philosophy Melanie Swan

University of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Galleryhttp://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCAhttp://www.slideshare.net/lablogga

Image: Emese Szorenyi

Thank you!