14:44
Golan Levin: The Dumpster / Martin Wattenberg: Thinking Machine 4
DATA ART: The art of the database
The other identifiable tendency in the FURTHER PROCESSING exhibiton is data visualization as a new type of cultural artifact. Ben Fry's “Isometric Blocks” is a scientific visualization of blocks of genetic codes, while Golan Levin's “The Dumpster” datamines the world of teenager blogs to find patterns in blog posts relating to romantic breakups. Martin Wattenberg's “Thinking Machine” shows the user how a computerized chess player “sees” the playing board as a field of energies in flux. Pablo Miranda Carranza experiments with architectural principles and parametric design, creating systems that learn to design their own output through the use of genetic algorithms.
These works have aspects of design objects or results of scientific research, but their popularity with lay audiences are proof positive of their emotional impact. Contradicting their status as “objective” visualizations of dry data, these works can in fact be seen as a pure form of computational art. Within the context of FURTHER PROCESSING these works are shown as examples of a new type of cultural artifact, pointing to a need for better tools for understanding the complex world of information that surrounds us.
PROCESSING: The tool
Processing was originally created by C.E.B. Reas and Ben Fry in 2001, when they were both at the Aesthetics & Computation Group (AGC) at the MIT Media Lab. Directed by John Maeda, the ACG was the one of the first academic programs to combine computational and aesthetic theory.
Processing tries to reduce the threshold keeping non-technical persons from experimenting with code by employing a set of core strategies:
- A simplified language syntax, allowing immediate experimentation with visual output.
- A programming interface which is intuitive and non-technical
- An Open Source architecture, which allows the extension of the tool by its users.
Since its inception, the Processing project has received considerable attention and the tool is now used as a standard teaching tool by many art and design schools worldwide. In 2005 Processing won a Golden Nica award in the Prix Ars Electronica.
Processing will be on display in the exhibition, so that visitors can try the tool and hopefully get a taste of code for themselves.
12:48
Karsten Schmidt: enerugii wa antee shite inai I (Unstable Energy I)
Mark Napier: Genesis (7 bit)
FURTHER PROCESSING: Generative art, open systems
23.09.-11.11.2006, Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz
Pablo Miranda Carranza (ES), Fabio Franchino (IT), Ben Fry (USA), Golan Levin (USA), Lia (AT), Mark Napier (USA), C.E.B. Reas (USA), Martin Wattenberg (USA), Marius Watz (NOR). Curated by Sandro Droschl and Marius Watz.
FURTHER PROCESSING uses the Open Source software Processing as a departure point to examine positions based on computational processes. Programming has always been a component in computer-based media art, but there is now an increasing interest in software and the computer code itself as methods of artistic exploration. Combined with the emergence of a new generation raised on microcomputers, BASIC programming and the Internet, this has produced a new movement within the media art scene, one which is concerned with code-based abstraction and the art of the database.
GENERATIVE ART: The system as art object
All software is by its nature based on systems. It is not surprising then that much software-based art is concerned with the system itself as an object of investigation. Loosely grouped under the term Generative Art, this work goes beyond the simple desire to use code as a tool. Instead, algorithms and code structures become the framework and material for the work itself.
Historical art movements like Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Fluxus and Op Art, as well as artists like Bridget Riley and Sol LeWitt, can serve as a background for understanding this artistic practice. At the same time. the importance of new scientific theories like complexity theory, emergence and artificial life should not be ignored. Advances in contemporary electronic music is another influence, with several of the artists working with musicians to produce software-based performance systems for the synaesthetic combination of sound and image in a live context.
Lia: O.I.G.C / C.E.B. Reas: Process 9 (software 3)
Within FURTHER PROCESSING several artists adopt a generative position, but with distinct formal interests. Lia and C.E.B. Reas use kinetic processes as an analog to drawing, leaving complex traces on the screen’s canvas that become heavily layered surfaces. They both show a sparse use of form and color, but while Lia exhibitis a minimalist aesthetic, Reas’ work is richly layered and complex. Fabio Franchino explores the computation as a design tool by commenting on the nature of pattern, which itself can be said to be a practice of rules. His “Unfinished Wall” describes a pattern that is non-repeating, which through procedural creation could be generated on a vast scale.
Karsten Schmidt and Marius Watz deal with the evolution of structures in space, tracing out virtual sculptural forms on the screen. Here vivid color and density of the forms is used to great effect, producing bold spatial compositions. Finally, Mark Napier's “Genesis (7 bit)” is daring enough to use the text of Genesis from the Old Testament as raw material, interpreting the letters as the coordinates for points in space. The resulting arcs and filament-like traces are delicate and mesmerizing.
The generative works in FURTHER PROCESSING present an aesthetic of complexity, concerned with formal explorations of spatial and temporal parameters. Ranging from the opulent to the minimalist, these pieces comfortably bridge the gap between an electronic image culture and traditions in drawing and painting.
For more information, see Kunstverein Medienturm.
To be followed by pt.#2, on Data art.
11:01
Alex Dragulescu: Extrusions in C major (detail) / Blogbot (detail)
[Read pt.1 for completion] Dragulescu’s Extrusions in C major uses music as its input, specifically the “Trio C-Major for Piano, Violin, and Cello” by Mozart. Here the artist rigorously describes his mapping: Different colors represent different instruments, while each segment of the fragmented forms represent a single note, with characteristics such as velocity and duration controlling the development of the form. The final form represents the temporal structure of the piece.
Blogbot and related projects Havoc and Algorithms of the Absurd represent a slightly different approach with a performative flair. Blogbot generates “experimental graphic novels” from content found on blogs. Texts are presented as though being read, appearing line by line accompanied by visual icons.
The online example What I Did Last Summer appropriates pixellated images of war machines and soldiers taken from computer games. They are then used to illuminate a narrative of fragments from two blogs relating to the Iraq war. One is by an American soldier and contains details of raids and military maneuvers, the other is the famous blog of Salaam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger. The introduction of temporal and graphic aspects to the text turns it into a performed narrative. Simultaneously, a graphic composition of increasing complexity is created as the text grows on the canvas.
Lev Manovich speaks of data visualization as the New Abstraction (see Data Visualisation as New Abstraction and Anti-Sublime, Word DOC file). In this context Dragulescu certainly presents an interesting take on info-aesthetics, with complex data sets being appreciated for their structural beauty alone.
Alex Dragulescu is from Romania and currently leads the Experimental Game Lab at the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts at University of California, San Diego.
04:15
Alex Dragulescu: Spam Architecture (detail) / Spam Plants (detail)
Romanian artist Alex Dragulescu turns data sets into raw materials for the generation of tantalizing 2D and 3D forms. Rather than scientific visualization intent on clarifying the content of the data, Dragulescu creates graphic and temporal compositions notable for their strong graphic qualities.
Spam Architecture is one project that has garnered much attention recently. Here spam is translated into three-dimensional form by analysing keywords and patterns in the text. Like its sibling project Spam Plants, it explores the mapping of textual data into spatial configurations.
All trace of the original data source is absent in the final result. No reference to the textual material remains, nor of the analytical process involved. Instead, a single coherent form is presented, with no signifiers indicating its origin. In this sense, the spam data could be said to simply constitute an arbitrary pseudo-random data input, with the result bearing no semantic connection to the raw material that it was generated from.
Dragulescu does not provide clues or any rational way of evaluating the nature of the mapping. But nor does he make a claim to producing literal meaning. Hence the viewer is free to enjoy the results as a complex formal experiment in which spam undergoes a process of transsubstantiation, transformed from a source of irritation into intriguing objects of great beauty.
18:25
Generator.x has been on extended (and unannounced) one-month holiday, but now summer is ending and blogging will slowly resume. To warm up, here are a few random links that have accumulated:
- AOL reSearch has just managed to release a substantial data set containing 20 million search queries from over 650 000 users. What was probably an eager attempt at scoring Open Source brownie points, has rapidly become a public relations disaster. Americans are rightly paranoid about their privacy, and the data set is likely to include personal data like names, social security numbers, unpleasant searches for porn and violent images etc.
The original post has not surprisingly been removed from AOL, although a cached copy can be seen using Google's cache. Mirrors posting the data set can easily be found, one of the best bets is to try the Bittorrent download. While the release of these data is bad news, it’s sure to be of interest to information visualizers and dataminers. It would almost be surprising if no art works came out of this debacle.
Read Techcrunch for a good overview of the whole story.
- Kunstverein Medienturm in Graz will feature a show called Further Processing in September. The show will show software-based works created with Processing, and also give a presentation of the tool itself. Contributing artists are Pablo Miranda Carranza, Fabio Franchino, Ben Fry, Golan Levin, Lia, Mark Napier, C.E.B. Reas, Karsten Schmidt, Martin Wattenberg, Marius Watz. The show is curated by Sandro Droschl (director of Medienturm and one of the curators behind Abstraction Now) and myself.
- Art.ficial Emotion 3.0 is an interesting exhibition at Itau Cultural in Sao Paulo, Brazil, featuring a major presentation of media artists whose works relate to cybernetic theory. See Paul Prudence's writeup on Dataisnature for a summary. Regine over at we-make-money-not-art recently did a interview with Guilherme Kujawski, one of the curators of the show. In it he presents his ideas about the exhibition and its relation to cybernetic theory.
For visual impressions of the show, see the following Flickr sets : mrprudence, watz.
- Code & Form is a new blog I’ve started to cover more technical and code-related issues that would be too geeky for Generator.x. This separation of content means that Generator.x will be more clearly focused on finished works and theory, rather than tools and technology.
- Ars Electronica is around the corner, if anyone is going and would like to meet up please send me an email on marius at unlekker net. I had thought of organizing an official Generator.x gathering, but there are not enough hours in the day… Hope to see some of you there anyway!
23:38
From BibliOdyssey: George Crumb: Makrokosmos I / Barry Guy: Bird Gong Game
BibliOdyssey is a wonderful blog that deals in archive images from obscure sources (usually old books). Typically, it presents old scientific diagrams, pattern samples, anatomical studies, ancient maps or just anything that has a strong visual attraction combined with a sense of the obscure and arcane. All told, it is a delightful image resource for anyone with even a slight sense of the magical.
Today’s post on the visual context of music is of potential interest to Generator.x readers. It deals with unconventional visual forms of musical notation, from the illustrative to the conqrete, from the ancient to contemporary. It should prove intriguing and well worth the time to indulge in both the images and links provided.
22:10
Simon Elvins: Silent London (detail) / Notation
Simon Elvins is concerned with sound as an ubiquitous force. Through a series of projects he has been documenting how sound is an often ignored dimension of our physical environment. Silent London plots quiet spaces in the English capitol using noise level data. An embossed print shows quiet areas raised up from the paper, bringing them to the attention of the viewer, while noise areas become blanked out valleys. noisy areas raised up from the paper while quiet areas become blank areas of peace. His FM Radio Map serves a dual purpose. On the one hand it plots the physical locations of commercial and pirate FM radio stations broadcasting in London. But circuits conductive pencil lines placed on the back of the map also turns it into a physical interface. Using a modified radio the map can be aurally “navigated” by placing metail contacts on points on the map.
These projects are poetic but ultimately functional. Taking a conceptual design approach (Elvins studied Communication Art & Design at the Royal College of Art), they present numerical data in an aesthetic context. By choosing low-tech materials (paper, electronics) Elvins creates fragile objects whose material qualities belie their sophisticated technical content.
Parallel to Elvin’s interest in sound is his fascination with mapping of physical and intangible forces. Both the aforementioned projects are classic mapping projects, while Notation is a more abstract exploration of how sound can be represented visually as marks on paper. Reminiscent of experiments with graphic notation (see Eno etc), the project consists of studies of representations of tonal patterns using pencil on paper.
The Notation project page seems to indicate that these drawings can ultimately be used to produce sound, but no details are available. If so, it would be an inversion of Elvin’s excellent Paper Record Player, where he constructed a functional record player out of paper, complete with its own conical paper amplifier.
(Thanks to TomC. See also Mount Fear.)
22:00
Sala: Websites as Graphs – Graph of Generatorx.no / Flickr: websitesasgraphs tag
HTML and markup languages like XML describe documents as hierarchies of tags, in what is called a Document Object Model. This structure can be visualized as a graph.
Websites as Graphs (by Sala of Onethousandpaintings.com) takes a web page URL as input, and outputs a graph of the underlying HTML structure. Used on any large content site like CNN or BoingBoing, it reveal the underlying logic of presentation used to build those pages. Related information form clusters, with color codes revealing a tendency towards table- or CSS-based design (the former being a no-no, obviously) as well as density of images, links etc.
While the graphs make for interesting images, it is still hard to make hard and fast assumptions about the page in question only by looking at the graph. But a well-structured document will always reveal itself as such, as will badly-structured documents. Websites as Graphs should be of interest to anyone who has tried to define a page structure, particularly if that structure conforms to the current CSS-based ideal of “logic-not-presentation” style of web design.
The source code for Websites as Graphs is freely available for download. It was built with Processing, using the Traer.Physics and HTMLParser.
Update: Markavian has hacked up a remix version which allows you to browse the tag structure interactively and even follow links to new documents. To use it, point your browser to a URL in the following format:
“mysite.com” should obviously be replaced with whatever URL it is you want to explore.
Relevant links:
- Websites as Graphs original post, with graph examples from popular web sites.
- Websites as Graphs (Applet), online applet which allows the input of user-specified URLs.
- Flickr: websitesasgraphs tag, user-contributed graphs of their own web sites.
- One thousand paintings, Sala’s art experiment in selling generic art objects priced according to a numeric formula based on the number of paintings sold.
- Christian Riekoff: Tree. Another visualization of HTML hierarchies, using 3D tree structures.
13:35
Harris / Kamvar: We feel fine
We feel fine is a lovely new project by Jonathan Harris and Sepandar Kamvar. It scrapes blogs, Myspace accounts and similar social networking systems, looking for the sentence fragments “I feel” and “I am feeling”, recording the sentence and the context they appear in, including photographs in the case of Flickr entries. The result is a massive dataset of feelings and moods combined with demographic data.
Written in Processing, We feel fine is a delightful combination of data mining and typographic treatment. Like Golan Levin’s The Dumpster, it is at once poetic and somehow serious. The playful use of color and typography supports the content of the piece, making it both beautiful and wondrous to explore.
While We feel fine goes a little further than The Dumpster in trying to project scientific axis on the data, both projects make a claim at scientific impact which is not really held up by the work. Ultimately, both are arbitrary visualizations of data which is hardly quantifiable. The success of these works (and they are successful) then stems from their ability to project a snapshot of human emotions in multitudes of permutation, as evidenced on blogs and social networking services. While the viewer may get a slight insight from the axis on which the data can be projected, the sheer size of the dataset is much more signficant in its impact on the audience.
Jonathan Harris presented at the OFFF Festival yesterday. See his site for his other visualization projects. Sepandar Kamvar founded a search engine called Kaltix, which was acquired by Google. He is a consulting assistant professor of Computational Mathematics and Engineering at Standford.
00:08
Due to the current concert tour (which is going very well, expect an update very soon) blogging has been a low priority. Here are a few interesting things we’ve noticed recently:
- Atelier Nord has a call for participation for a workshop called The Empire’s New Clothes - Art, Fashion and Technology. The deadline is today – Monday 24 April, so if fashion is your thing hurry up and send them a CV and statement of intent. Apologies for the late post of this call
- Switchboard is a new Processing library written by Jeffrey Crouse. It implements a general application layer for using web services with Processing. Services already implemented to varying degrees are “google, yahoo, msn, allmusic, shoutcast, foaf, and rss/atom feeds”.
- Linkology by Ben Fry is a project for New York Magazine showing link connections between the top 50 blogs. I’ve been meaning to blog it forever, but never got around to it so I’m simply linking it here.
- Visualcomplexity keeps adding new projects. Some new favorites are Essence of Rabbit (by our Berlin friends at Pictoplasma) and Font 004 - Community by Marian Bantjes. Interesting to see that Visualcomplexity is including projects that don’t fit a strict infoviz focus. If you haven’t checked in for a while then take a look and consider subscribing to their RSS feed. It’s well worth it.
Photos and video of the Generator.x tour should go online in the next few days.
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