Research algorithms part 2

What are you going to do with your materials? What can you do with the experiences, thoughts, feelings, visual (or sonic) artefacts and writings that you generated last Wednesday? How can you: Document, represent, interrogate, express, analyse, re-mediate, formalise, map, reduce, expand, fictionalize, visualise, aesthetise, spatialise, temporalise?

Image manipulation in Processing is the most logical means for completing this mini-project. The point is for you to consolidate the skills and areas we have gone over, not to expand into areas I haven't covered yet, (unless you are already skilled in them). That way you can hone the foundational processes you'll need to work on large scale, self-directed works from the second term onwards. I'll still present 4 more 'lectures' this term, mainly on image processing, but also on arrays, constructors and overloaded methods, simple interactions, inheritance and polymorphism if we have time. So you can use those techniques and structures in the mini project as well....

Youll work on this mini project for the 4 weeks between November 10th and our last class on the 8th December - when each of you will present your work in a sumptuous grand finale.

Visualising data

Visualizing DataVisualizing Data is my book about computational information design. It covers the path from raw data to how we understand it, detailing how to begin with a set of numbers and produce images or software that lets you view and interact with information - Ben Fry But what if our data isnt expressed as numbers? How do we, as artist researchers, organise, process, document, store, analyse or generate an understanding of our materials?

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Get the source code for this great, Processing based, book: >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> Publishers Description: How you can take advantage of data that you might otherwise never use? With the help of the free software programming environment called Processing, this book helps you represent data accurately on the Web and elsewhere, complete with user interaction, animation, and more. You'll learn basic visualization principles, how to choose the right kind of display for your purposes, and how to provide interactive features to design entire interfaces around large, complex data sets.

Data visualization is a way to make sense of the ever-increasing stream of information with which we're bombarded and provides a creative antidote to the "analysis paralysis" that can result from the burden of processing such a large volume of information. "It's not about clarifying data," says Koblin. "It's about contextualizing it." Today algorithmically inspired artists are re-imagining the art-science continuum through work that frames the left-brain analysis of data in a right-brain creative story. Some use data visualization as a bridge between alienating information and its emotional impactsee Chris Jordan's portraits of global mass culture. Others take a more technological angle and focus on cultural utilitythe Zoetrope project offers a temporal and historical visualization of the ephemeral Web. Still others are pure artistic indulgencelike Koblin's own Flight Patterns project, a visualization of air traffic over North America. Here, see a slideshow of works by 21 current pioneers of the discipline.portraits of global mass cultureZoetrope projectFlight PatternsHere, see a slideshow of works by 21 current pioneers of the discipline. from.html

/papers/artistic-infovis.pdf

visualization-modern-approaches/ visualization-modern-approaches/ data-visualization-tools/ data-visualization-tools/

Convey research processes as an algorithm or a map?

You can use analogue and digital resources… JeeHee Lee, PFA class 2007

Other possibilities for conveying both the research processes and the materials gathered by engaging with those processes

Photo-montage, including drawings, combined with analogue materials? (drawings can easily be scanned in the library)

Well look at specific image manipulating techniques in Processing (on a separate Power Point). Lesson 6 – so the point is somehow to make a piece based on the materials and experiences generated by the field trip – or your own trip if you missed the group visit.