matt:littlemore

There are lots of incredible generative data visualisation pieces around at the moment, and some great inspiration for the forthcoming Creative Flows project. With our group already having an idea of what we are trying to achieve, some examples on the net seemed to immediately jump out as a benchmark.

Being very much a graphic design influenced team, the visual aesthetic was discussed almost before the actual concept. Digg BigSpy feeds the most popular stories ‘Dug’ by users and is definately close to how I imagine the news feed type aesthetic for our project. I like the minimal use of colour, varying type size and immediacy of the scrolling info as it comes in.

As we will be using RSS feeds, I also note RSS voyage by Andy Biggs. It’s a really immersive way of displaying usually linear snippets of info. You can integrate your own personal RSS feeds and browse them while you zoom in and out. As we intend to create a piece which requires no interaction but generates the visualisation automatically voyage will not be so much an influence directly, but I really like the smooth 3D space.

The NBC tweet tracker is also worth pointing out, as it is employing a similar approach to our own project. Using a more obviously accesible interface the most tweeted strories appear as larger images. Our Flow project will be a more abstract (and hopefully more indicative of the frenzy of ‘chat’ around olympic stories) version of this concept.

It is also worth watching Hans Rosling’s funny and engaging talk on the importance and future of data visualisation of publicly funded information
and his website www.gapminder.org

We made mix tapes, they remix music – We watched TV, they make TV
Lawrence Lessig is perhaps the most important voice for artists, authors and coders of the digital age who wish to remix existing media assets without fear of recrimination. He is a founding board member of Creative Commons and a strong supporter of legislation to free up the restrictions on copyright and trademark in the context of technology applications.
Most Vidders and Remixers, if considering copyrights at all, tend to see no problem with using ‘found’ media assets to reconstruct and ‘mash up’ and as their work is generally created for fun and not for profit, simply see their role as one of adding content (and value) to sites such as YouTube. The role of Youtube has become a kind of interactive public access TV – viewers watch, critique, imitate and parody at an incredible rate, media which can itself become (although somewhat short-lived) a popular cultural style in it’s own right.

Lessig says ‘We live in an age of prohibition, where in many areas of life ordinary people live against the law. The kids live life knowing they live it against the law – which is extremely corrosive and corrupting.’

Copyright law has a very unclear role in the digital age – every visual reference is itself a ‘copy’, where many of these copies are used to the benefit of the originator. Is it fair to allow copies which work for the good of the copyright holder and criminalise the copies which don’t? And is it possible that by creating a culture of illegal creativity in the world of new media this may have a detrimental effect on society as a whole?

Anybody involved or interested in Remix Culture should check out his speech on how the law is strangling creativity

For the first time in history, the most powerful mass medium of a society is totally controlled and dominated by advertisers and the market, totally driven by commercial imperatives, saturated by ubiquitous commercials that deliver audiences to advertisers (not programs to audiences).
Avante garde artists’ experimentations with both form and content function as a direct challenge to the ideological and political power of mainstream commercial cinema …no solutions or programmatic statements, but a series of intricate challenges, hints and coded messages, subverting both form and content… it is by definition an aesthetic and political movement… film is sacked, atomised, caressed and possessed in a frenzy of passionate love.
Amos Vogel (From Film As A Subversive Art 1974)

Vogel’s view of the future of mainstream cinema seems to ring true today in relation to the remix culture of social networking sites such as YouTube. Perhaps not entirely subversive in intent, millions of Vidders and remixers are deconstructing and envisioning their own personal takes on film, TV and other media forms in popular culture. Usually as homage to their favourite movies, bands or even TV commercials (caressed and possessed in a frenzy of love) or in other cases a parody or political message (subverting form and content) usually delivered tongue in cheek The ‘Born Digital’ generation are making their own TV from slices of other people’s work, remixing peer’s as well as commercially owned work. Are they Vogel’s (unknowing?) iconoclasts transgressing narrative modes, structures and visual convention? For this is the art of the common people, this is modern entertainment, an ever-changing production and consumption cycle where new styles are immediately critiqued by peers, imitated and devalued. This is art separated from the art world, often illegal in media usage and so widespread almost impossible to police.

Thanks to Honor Beddard for an interesting insight into the curation of V&A Digital Pioneers Collection. Running until 25 April 2010, the collection highlights the very beginnings of computer generated art with work from Frieder Nake, Herbert W. Franke, Harold Cohen, Manfred Mohr, Roman Verastko and Vera Molnar along with other pioneers at the cutting edge of the creative use of computers in the visual arts. The collection is a selection of prints, plotter drawings and multimedia works using computer algorithms to create non-human decisions within the creative process. The works themselves are accompanied by documentation from the artists and industry behind the technologies which reach back as early as the 1950s. The collection is destined for expansion as more pieces are discovered and recognised for their importance, and a must see for anyone interested in the history of computer generated art and design.
Check out the V&A Website