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The Art of Mapping Statistics Interview with George Legrady Legrady - since
2001 Professor of Interactive Media, with joint
appointment in the Media Arts & Technology
program and the department of Art, UC Santa Barbara
- is one of the first generation of artists in the
1980's to integrate computer processes into his
artistic work, producing pioneering prizewinning
projects in the early 1990's such as the "Anecdoted
Archive from the Cold War" (1993), "Slippery
Traces" (1995), "Sensing Speaking Space" (2002),
and more recently the internationally traveling
"Pockets Full of Memories" (2001-2005). He has
recently completed a commission, "Making Visible
the Invisible" for the Rem Koolhaas designed
Seattle Public Library, was featured in November at
the Roberto Simanowski
talked with George Legrady about his work
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 Seattle Public Library GL: In brief, we
receive an XML formatted list of the circulation of books
and media (such as cd's and dvd's) that library patrons
check out every hour, process it, then visualize the results
in 4 sequenced animations presented on 6 large LCD screens
that are positioned horizontally behind the main information
desk of the library's open research space called the "Mixing
Chamber". The intent of the project is to provide a glimpse
as to what the community is thinking based on the things
they check out to take home with them. We show this by the
hour and over long time as the project will be active for
ten years. The data comes together in
real-time from various sources, as patrons check things out
online, and at a number of locations in the library
building. All items have a RFID (radio frequency
identification) tag attached to them which are automatically
read by the checkout system, resulting in a chronological,
aggregated list that provides a colorful associative
sequence of titles, a form of semi-randomly generated
browsing list. All personal references to patrons are purged
from the list as the library maintains very high standards
of privacy protection. In addition to the circulation date
and timestamp, we get metadata about the book itself such as
Dewey subject classification codes, barcode info, titles,
associative keywords defined through the Library of Congress
Marc System, so there is a lot of potential for
visualization. The last visualization "Keyword Map Attack"
uses a list of keywords we create by doing a word frequency
index. This is done by parsing the titles and keywords of
each checked out item in the list, to produce an hourly
record of which words are predominant, and then follow with
some statistical analysis of what has come through, for
instance, calculating how many books, cds, dvds, and how the
checked out items map themselves according to the Dewey
categories. The project proposal was
guided by the library's interest in having an artwork that
reflected on the library as a system, and one of its key
infrastructure components consists of the flow of data. I
also wanted to build on the library's high-tech interface
which the architect Rem Koolhaas prioritized in his concept
for the building. The project is unusual as a public artwork
in that it plugs directly into the library's Information
Technology (IT)system. We receive data from the IT center
which we process and store on our server mounted in the
library's server room next to hundred others humming away.
Once the data is processed, it is accessed on the next floor
by three computers each of which have 2 projectors connected
to them. These computers receive the data every 15 minutes,
and generate visualization animations continuously from
morning till night. RS:
You have radically changed the interface since you began
work on this piece. In your earlier version you planned to
visualize the data as vertical lines and as a net of dots
with changing brightness, which would have reminded of the
starry sky or rather of a radar image with books as
airplanes and topics as geographical space. Later the ideas
for visualization included interesting graphics and
animations in an arcane and minimalistic way. GL: You are comparing
the early visualization studies to what eventually was
implemented. The project consists of 3 components: the
incoming data, its processing, and then the visualization.
Since our first tests in early 2004, the incoming data
format sent to us from the library has changed formats a few
times, and this has led to a number of fundamental redesigns
for the visualization. We have been studying the data,
trying to get a sense of what would work best, what metadata
information might be most relevant and interesting to keep
track of. The initial designs which can be seen at the
bottom of the In hindsight, I spent 2003
and early 2004 studying the possibilities with Andi and in
the summer of 2004, I worked with August Black on
visualization experimentations and planning the data
processing system. August tested a visualization form called
"radar plot" which consists of mapping Dewey category data
in the form of spokes from a central point like on a bicycle
wheel, where the number of books checked out in any category
would be marked on the spoke, then by joining the dots and
filling in the inside space with black, a visualization was
generated that looked like an explosion from a central
point. It is called "Burst" and can be seen at this
1 1/2 years were spent in
planning, and then the project was realized between July and
early September (ten weeks) this past summer (2005) with the
information architecture and technical work done by Rama
Hoetzlein, a doctoral student in the UCSB Media Arts &
Technology program who has backgrounds in both Art and
Engineering, and his colleague Marko Zifchock. The
Vital
Statistics:
Shows numerically what has circulated during the
last hour and since the morning. Each of the 6
screens feature a specific sampled section of the
list of items. Screen 1 shows the total number of
items checked out; Screen 2 gives a count of the
Dewey items checked out; Screen 3 features the
total of Non-Dewey items; Screen 4 lists the Books
checked out; Screen 5; the DVD’s checked out,
and Screen 6 shows the sum of CD, VHS and tape
media checked out. The background color is
synchronized to change at each hour. It begins with
orange in the morning, transitions to yellow by
noon. At 1pm it shifts to green and by late
afternoon goes from blue to purple. In this way,
the color becomes an indicator of time. Dot
Matrix Rain:
The screens are subdivided according to the Dewey
Classification System consisting of 10 columns
across and 100 bars vertically placed to represent
the divisions of each category from 0 to 99.
Checked out items’ titles come on the screen
chronologically in two fashion, “falling from
the sky” if they do not have a Dewey number,
otherwise popping on screen at their Dewey
location, which has the effect of brightening the
bar’s color that represents their Dewey
classification. Books are in yellow, DVD in green
and other media in blue. By the end of the
animation, the bars are color coded to provide an
overview as to which Dewey categories received the
most circulation. RS:
The final version is much more focused on giving precise
information. Now one can actually see which titles have been
taken. Why did you change from the more visually spectacular
and poetic setting to the more precise, less metaphoric
one? GL: The challenge is
always to arrive at the ideal balance between information
and poetics. The initial abstract designs were experiments
and eventually evolved into more informational
visualizations as it seemed necessary to bring in a certain
degree of legibility so that patrons can figure out
relatively easily how the visual system works. Also, during
the experimentation phase we were working with test data.
Once the real data was coming in, (and in real-time), this
opened the way for visualizations where we could feature the
data more directly without too much of a stylistic
interference. In the end, the most fascinating element is
the cultural narrative and associative resonances that
emerges out of the stream of data itself, so its best to let
it speak for itself. Another thing to keep in
mind is the influence of the collaborative process that
takes place when specialists work together. Each of the
participants makes decisions at every step of the
development, which transforms the outcome to varying
degrees. These decisions are shaped by individuals' world
views, aesthetic approaches, and logical problem-solving
solutions that inadvertently pull and push the process so
that the outcome may need to be readjusted if the conceptual
and aesthetic goals of the project diverge from the initial
artistic concept. During the summer production we had 4
individuals involved. Rama and his colleague Mark were
developing the technical production in Ithaca. I was in
Santa Barbara, Asia and Oklahoma interacting through
telephone and the Internet, and so was Flurin Springer, a
design student in Zurich, who was brought in to assist with
the screen graphic design lay-outs. The final adjustments
took place during the installation week in Seattle were Rama
and I worked side-by-side to arrive at the current
animations. RS:
What compromises does the artist have to make if the
collaboration includes so many people coming from other
areas such as data-design, programming, and
engineering? GL: It's a fine
balancing act between being open to contributions that may
enhance the project but potentially shift the work slightly
from its original intention, and at the same time being
careful to maintain the fundamental principles of the
project so that the concept of the work is not compromised.
Brigitte Steinheider, an industrial/organizational
psychologist and I co-authored a RS:
You entitle your piece "Making Visible the Invisible" and
said at the beginning of this interview its intent is to
provide a glimpse as to what the community is thinking
expressed through the things they check out. It seems you
see your work in the tradition of art, which intents to
foster reflection about society and self (ones own role on
this planet). You do so by literally disclosing information
otherwise hidden or hardly accessible to the public. This
can also be seen in your earlier work
GL: "Pockets Full of
Memories", commissioned by the Centre Pompidou, has now been
exhibited in six European urban communities (Paris,
Rotterdam, Linz, Budapest, Helsinki, Manchester) and
consists of the public digitizing and then describing an
object in their possession through an interactive
questionnaire. The digitized image of the object is featured
with other contributions on a large projection through
alternating animations, letting the public become aware how
their semantic description determined where the system's
algorithm would situate the object in relation to the
others. The underlying intent of both "Pockets Full of
Memories " and "Making Visible the Invisible" has been to
reveal systems at play that impact on us socially,
economically, and politically. I consider data management
and processing to be a highly interesting arena of research
for artistic work. For instance, how we perform our daily
social interactions such as how we shop, how we transact
finances, how we are medically diagnosed, and how we
displace ourselves geographically, are all studied very
closely through data collection, statistical analysis,
processing, resulting in some form of actions. Things I have
done and choices I have made in the recent past make
themselves apparent through the incoming junkmail I receive,
letting me know that the system has recognized my actions.
RS:
Lev Manovich notes in his article "The Anti-Sublime Ideal in
New Media": "data visualisation art is concerned with the
anti-sublime" because it transforms a phenomenon, "which
goes beyond the limits of human senses and reason" into a
"representation whose scale is comparable to the scales of
human perception and cognition", it transfers "invisible and
'messy' phenomena […] into ordered and
harmonious geometric figures". In this light, mapping seems
more to have the effect of beautification of (statistic)
data and of a therapeutic appeasement of the audience. What
is the essence of mapping and its concept as
art? GL: My Geography,
Library Science and Engineering colleagues consider mapping
as a means for clarifying the relationships in a set of
information, for instance a map allows me to know the way,
and in this sense there is appeasement, as I can have the
overview, and understand the limits, boundaries, and
relations between elements within a structure, situation, or
system. The process of visual mapping also allows the
emergence of patterns which would not have been apparent
otherwise. Things that are present, active, but have yet to
be given a label, a name, or have yet to be pointed at.
Things that may reveal themselves now that we are paying
attention, and looking closely. It is in this sense that the
Seattle project has got its name "Making Visible the
Invisible. RS:
Your perspective is certainly accurate if mapping art indeed
provides a better orientation. However, there are examples
of mapping art, which don't allow a better understanding of
a situation or system but deliver a more or less abstract
visualization of data. The intent of those pieces (for
example Mark Napier's "Black and White," Greyworld's
"Source", and Stelarc's "Ping Body") seems to be a strong
visual impact on the audience rather than the diagnose of
certain processes in society. Those works appear as a new
way of formalistic art, combining ready-made data with
formalistic experiments. In contrast, the sociological study
of "Making Visible the Invisible" - as well as for example
"The Mechanics of Emotion" by Maurice Benayoun and
Jean-Baptiste or "They Rule" by Josh On & Futurefarmer -
can be seen in the tradition of realism or rather
naturalism, which considered writing as scientific
experiments and aimed to rule out all subjectivity of the
author undertaking the experiment. Albert Camus in his book
"The Rebel. An essay on Man in Revolt" (1951) once accused
this kind of poetic to be a pure apotheosis of reality, in
which the requirement of artistic creation, the requirement
of a specific perspective of the artist is renounced. Such
charge would not apply to "Pockets Full of Memories", where
the alternative ways to organize the data compiled is a
strong statement by the artist about the way our memory
functions. However, "Making Visible the Invisible" -
especially in its less metaphoric, more informative version
- does present an account of the underlying structure of
data without the interference of the artist's point of view.
It seems to be more in the way of photography (mirroring
what is in front of the camera) than of painting (depicting
what the artist sees or feels). How do you see the role of
the artist in mapping as an art form? What do you think
about those examples mentioned above, which do not present a
reliable account of reality?
GL: Teaching in the
Media Arts & Technology Graduate program, a situation
where I am daily engaged in interdisciplinary dialogue with
engineers, computer scientists and electronic composers, has
probably influenced me towards streamlining the visual
representations I do so that the information speaks for
itself. Of course, this realistic
approach is an illusion, as no matter how literal, or
metaphorical the representation may be, there is always
subjectivity and a cultural voice present. As we know the
photograph is a transparent medium that successfully hides
the author's ideological intentions, and hence the reason
why it has been such a great propaganda tool. Paul Virilio
quotes the sculptor Rodin who argues in the late 19th
century that the painting may better convey and synthesize
an event in time, and therefore is "truer" then the
photograph (which Rodin calls the scientific image) as it
basically lifts a moment out of it and results in a reduced
suspended state which falsely represents. So the question of
which is truer, the literal or the metaphorical
representation, is still open to debate. There is today a
very active interest in visualizing information and
scientific data as a form of information analysis. This work
is being done across many disciplines such as Geography,
Library Science, Computer Science, Biology (bio-informatics)
and is of particular interest as it overlaps the
visualization experiments currently taking place in digital
based artworks and design. What could be further emphasized
in the scientific research is an active and conscious
awareness of the transformative impact of the form or
structure by which the data is organized and visualized. In
brief: data that is processed through whatever form, is
transformed by it. For the kinds of
visualizations I generate for projects like the Seattle
Public Library, the intent is to create rules according to
which data is organized and then results in a visualization.
If the outcome does not fulfill my expectations in terms of
its conceptual, formal, and aesthetic goals, I change the
rules. One could argue that art allows for this kind of
flexibility, but then scientists do the same.
On the one hand, I am very
much interested in the poetics that may emerge from
presenting a set of data within a structure, as I am
interested in letting the voice of the artist/author surface
through the structural design of the form itself. For
instance in the RS:
You started your carrier as a visual artist before getting
involved in programming. You have seen - and have been
actively involved in this process - how new media changed
the hierarchy, system and concept of art during the last 20
years. Do you have an intuition about art and new media 10
years from now? GL: I began my
artistic career in photography, was introduced to computer
programming in the early 1980's and it took some time to
figure out how to synthesize digital technological processes
into an artmaking influenced by minimalism, and conceptual
art, and so I bring that experience to consider how new
media may develop in the future. Certain aspects of
digitization fit right in to the analysis of technological
representation. For instance, questions related to
differentiations between the original and the copy, code
production as a form of authorship, the unique object,
multiples and mass production, the relation between the real
and its simulation, etc. Many of the discursive topics of
postmodernism have been seamlessly transplanted onto digital
media art. What has stood out since the time of
photography's integration into the mainstream contemporary
art market in the 1980's is that approaches that have
continued painting's historical discourse of the grand
narrative such as in the works of Thomas Demand, Andreas
Gursky, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and others, have
become integrated to the core of art discourse whereas those
experimental works that focused on examining the syntactic
language of the medium such as the formal experiments of
let's say Rodchenko, Moholy-Nagy, or the "street
photography" focused works of photographer's like Winogrand,
Friedlander, which address how the medium itself can develop
new forms of representations, maintained their status as
marginally situated "photographic works." In the end,
everything will be digitally produced so the medium itself
wont be the issue, but rather how it will be implemented,
either to continue certain narratives, or to challenge and
arrive at new forms of what my colleague Marcos Novak
describes as "new worldmaking". RS:
Thanks a lot for this
interview. |
