FIGURE IT OUT. Some Thoughts on the Impact and Analysis of In-Formation in Digital Abstraction and/as Information Design

Vortrag | Lecture
Conference "Digital Abstraction at the Interface between Electronic Media Arts and Data Visualization"
Jacobs University Bremen, 08. Mai 2015 | May 8, 2015

[Aufgrund der Terminüberschneidung mit der Konferenz "Kunst und Okkultismus nach 1945" (s. "Die Geister, die ich rief…") musste dieser Vortrag leider abgesagt werden. | Due to the accidental schedule conflict with the conference "Art and Occultism after 1945" (see "Spirits that I've cited…") this talk had to be cancelled.]

Data never come alone, but with interpretation. They are always in-formed, for they need to be form(att)ed to become and to be processed as information. This is not only true for data involved in processes of communication, but likewise for the processes of data gathering and storage – be these processed by organisms or by computers. Yet, while the latter are obviously designed by humans and thus as such deeply informed by cultural concepts, there seems to be a strong desire to consider digitally computed data as 'pure data', as if digital abstraction could be understood as a means of strapping off the dirt of any all-too-human (mis )interpretation of information.

This affects not only the way we are dealing with digital data and their computation in general, but also the ways we’re looking at its results – especially when processed and brought on display by more recent technologies of digital data visualization: for here form and figures seems to emerge almost immediately (and thus unmediated) from 'pure data'. Of course this is not the case. Just as in any analogue process of data gathering, storage, information and communication there are complex design decisions involved at all levels, and these are both informed by and in turn addressing cultural concepts and conventions.

Thus, if we ask "what makes today’s digital abstraction so different, so appealing", the answer may simply be: It’s for the elegance with which the in-formation in information design is being rendered and made (in)visible in abstraction(s). This is, above all, a great potential. Already on a more general level we appreciate abstraction not because we would be unaware or willingly ignorant of whatever is being strapped off in favour to focus on selected aspects, but because we have reasons for reducing complexity. Effective information needs abstraction – indeed this is what information design at its core is all about, hereby perfectly matching with the basic needs and functions of human perception and cognition.

Yet to be able to judge and value information, we need to know about the design decisions behind this process of in formation, and we have to be familiar with the ways it is informing both the data and the information design. So what if, as it is often the case in digital abstraction, this part of in-formation is hidden in code and in algorithms that are not accessible to us? Do we all have to become hackers or experts if not in math and informatics, then in software studies at least? Or will perhaps also a more general visual literacy of abstraction help to decipher both the message and the implicit knowledge embedded in the code? If so, could transfers and transformations from analogue to digital and back again, as well as a closer look at hybrid (con-)figurations of bodies of information provide further insights? Let’s figure it out…

Hintergrundinformationen | Background Information:

Forschungsschwerpunkt auf www.under-construction.cc | research focus MEDIOLOGIES at www.under-construction.cc

tags: aesthetics, alltagskultur, alltagstechnologien, analogital, art & media, art & science, ästhetik, bild & imagination, communication, design, digital culture, digitale kultur, displays, everyday culture, everyday technologies, image & imagination, knowledge cultures, kommunikation, kunst & medien, kunst & naturwissenschaften, kunst & wissenschaft, modelle, models, perception, repräsentation, representation, technologie, technology, tools, topologien, topologies, vermittlung, visual culture, visualisation, visualisierung, visuelle kultur, wahrnehmung, werkzeug, wissenskulturen