In this original Digital Art and Philosophy class, we will become familiar with different forms of digital art and related philosophical issues. Digital art is anything related to computers and art such as using a computer to create art or an art display that is digitized. Philosophical aspects arise regarding art, identity, performance, interactivity, and the process of creation. Students may respond to the material in essay, performance, or digital art work (optional). Instructor: Melanie Swan. Syllabus: www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA

1. Image: Emese
Szorenyi
Digital Art and Philosophy #2
The Design Aesthetics of Meaning-Making: Information Visualization
Melanie Swan
University of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Gallery
Syllabus: http://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA

2. 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

3. Digital Art is anything involving
computers and art
3

4. Sub-categories of Digital Art
Information Visualization Virtual Reality, Gaming
BioArt, Generative Art Identity, the Future 4

5. Philosophy of Digital Art
• 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
5

6. What is Information Visualization?
6

7. Classic Info Viz Examples
7

8. 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

9. History of Information Visualization
Timeline charts (Joseph Priestley, 1765)
9

10. History of Information Visualization
The bar chart (William Playfair, 1786) 10

11. History of Information Visualization
Trade-balance time-series chart, William Playfair, Commercial
and Political Atlas, 1786 11

12. History of Information Visualization
Trade-balance time-series chart (William Playfair, 1786) 12

13. Classic Info Viz Examples
Edward Tufte (1970s-1990s) information display, data-rich illustrations,
information design, visual literacy, visual communication of information
Napoleon’s March (Campaign of 1812) 13

14. Classic Info Viz Examples
200 years that changed the world
Gapminder (Hans Rosling, 2009)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPt8ElTQMIg 14

15. Classic Info Viz Examples
http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/dynamic/app/

16. Info viz is rapidly evolving
2009 2012
16

17. 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

18. The New Info Viz Tools: Small Multiples
Plotting several similar
charts to highlight
differences in one variable
18

19. The New Info Viz Tools:
Bullet Charts
19

20. The New Info Viz Tools: Sparklines
20

21. The New Info Viz Tools: Horizon Chart
Space efficient way to analyze and compare multiple time series data sets 21

22. The New Info Viz Tools: Real-Time
http://square.github.com/cubism/
22

23. The New Info Viz Tools:
Processing.org, Tableau, Visual.ly, D3
http://www.creativeapplications.net/news/
processing-org-exhibition-now-curated-by-fv-news/
NodeXL
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data
23

24. The New Info Viz Tools: Processing.org
24

25. The New Info Viz Tools:
Internet-of-Things Sensors
Not just tech gadgets but everyday objects and microsensors
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/the-internet-of-things-infographic/
Meetups: Sensored (San Francisco 2/25), Internet of Things (Hacker DoJo 2/20)
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. 25

26. The New Info Viz Tools:
D3.js javascript library
26

27. The New Info Viz Tools:
Gephi social network graphing
27

28. Contemporary Sleep Tracking Dataviz:
Is it Art?
FitBit Lark
Zeo
28

29. University Data Viz Departments
29

30. 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 resources
30

31. 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

32. 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 “
Not anti-sublime: Every Uncanny: Carnivore (Alex Galloway and the
Icon (John Simon, 1998) Radical Software Group, 2002)
32

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

34. The Sublime in Digital Art?
Listening Post : Real-Time Data Responsive Environment
(Mark Hansen and Ben Rubin, 2001)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD36IajCz6A
Source: The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation by Tegan Bristow
34

35. The Sublime in Digital Art?
Translator II: Grower (Sabrina Raaf, 2004)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3b9LlAYqAw
Source: The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation by Tegan Bristow 35

36. The Sublime in Digital Art?
The Cloud Harp (Nicholas Reeves and the NXIO GESTATIO Design Lab, 1997)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyyCIDsRB1o, http://vimeo.com/5235502
Source: The Sublime in Interactive Digital Installation by Tegan Bristow 36

37. Digital Art and the Sublime
• Sublime: loftiness,
vastness, excellence, 2001
inspiration
• Kant’s sublime - object so
big cannot take it in as a
whole, could crush us
• Lyotard’s differend - the 2004
straining of the mind at
the edges of itself and
conceptuality
1997
37

38. 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
Troika (Lisa Jevbratt, 2002)
38

39. 3D Dataviz: Smiley Radio Telescope
Smiley Telescope, PARI, Balsam Grove, NC USA Smiley Virtual Control Room
Real-time radio data received into 3D graph
Smiley in Second Life Euclidean Visualization Environment
39

40. 3D Dataviz: Cheminformatic-Assisted
Image Array (CAIA)
36 meters 12 images
8 images
24 meters
Gus Rosania, University of Michigan - The Rosania Research Group studies the
40
microscopic transport properties of small drug-like molecules inside cells

41. 3D Dataviz: real-time statistics
41

42. 3D Dataviz: Second Life exhibits
SAP airline booking application
Real-time NOAA weather data
Real-time LAX airport traffic Svarga Artificial Life Ecosystem
42

43. Reading: Authenticity and Computer
Art (Margaret Boden, 2006)
• Examines claim: “computer art is not authentic”
– Authentic: genuine, trustworthy, credible
• Artworld’s philosophical assumptions of authentic art
1. Art must spring from human agency
2. Art must be grounded in emotion
3. Art must involve the communication of experience
4. Art must be honest
5. Art must be unique
6. Art must be transformational
• Argument 1: Aesthetic flaws
• Argument 2: Computer art is not possible
43

44. Reading: Authenticity and Computer
Art (Margaret Boden, 2006)
Evolutionary Art and Computers (Stephen Todd and William Latham (1992))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AN6ngsckRZs
44

45. Argument 2:
Computer Art is not possible
Guernica
(Picasso, 1937)
• 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 45

46. Reading: Authenticity and Computer
Art (Margaret Boden, 2006)
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)
46

47. 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

48. Digital Art is anything involving
computers and art
48

49. Distinguishability of Computer Art and
the Uncanny Valley
• Is it “art” or “not art” if we can
tell it was computer-made?
49

50. Deleuze and the Diagram
Aesthetic Threads in Visual Organization
• Magnum opus: Difference
and Repetition, 1968,
traditional metaphysics
topics, difference in itself
• A Thousand Plateaus, French Philosopher
1980, (Deleuze and Gilles Deleuze
Guattari), innovative new 1925-1995
concepts
50

51. Deleuzian Model of the World
Philosophy
Concepts Concerned with: Understanding Abstraction
Art, economics, politics
Qualitative Concerned with: Experience Figuration
Science and technology
Quantitative Concerned with: Characterization Enumeration
Concepts: rhizome, body without organs, molar, molecular, smooth, striated,
figural, machinic, faciality, deterritorialization, haecceity, nomadology, diagram
51

52. 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

53. Information Visualization
• 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?
53

54. Agenda and Upcoming Sessions
2/12 - 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.
Comments and Feedback:
m@MelanieSwan.com
54

55. Thank you!
Image: Emese
Szorenyi
Digital Art and Philosophy
Melanie Swan
University of the Commons and the Emerald Tablet Gallery
http://www.MelanieSwan.com/PCA
http://www.slideshare.net/lablogga