This is a weekly update as well as a chance to add some work that should be of interest on a number of fronts as Anna’s work on network visuality and Andrew’s work on dynamic-infrastructures begins to move toward a consideration of collaborative architectures.
I know that everyone is well aware of the next two groups of projects that I will write about. They are by now very old examples in terms of the passage of web-time. That said, the much (over) hyped web2.0 phenomenon should perhaps be better understood in the light of some of the application and experiments that went on as Macromedia Flash achieved ubiquity and we all suddenly realized that the web was a zone of dynamic interaction rather than simply a plane of interlinked publications. These experiments were mostly called ‘toys’ and built in Flash before Asynchronous Java and XML became all the rage. If Flash illustrated the potential dynamism of the web then AJAX capitalized on it,. AJAX facilitated the development of tools that ‘rode the dynamic wave of interaction’ rather than simply (or not so simply) illustrating it. That said many of the traits of so-identified web2.0 networks might be seen as premised by the demonstration of end-user generativity and collaboration, the map as an emerging territory, customization, and playful production that was explored by these so-called toys. I’d argue that the examples below, in part due to there simplicity have a lot to say about the the relation between dynamic media and network visuality.
The first example of these ‘toys’ are Yugo Nakamura’s fingertracks series (I warned you they were simple – but joyfully so).
Yogop No.5 Finger Tracks Study A : This is really the point of departure, the representation of users interacting with a grid of buttons that do nothing except flash and signal the word ‘NOTHING’ when clicked. What we should note however is that an image of the network emerges out of an users recorded interactions. There is a lot to be said about the affective force of the ‘nothing’ sign and the behavior it evokes. You tend to click on all buttons in search of a ‘something’ – which remains virtual in the philosophical sense of the word. There is an open ended differential relation established between the ‘nothing’ and the ‘something’ it promises. I think this is an exciting and beautifully simple demonstration of virtuality, and maybe a good model for a networked conservation of virtuality.
The image that this interaction and ‘recollection’ produces is that of a network without any visual persistence and reminds us of the apparently chaotic flight paths of bees collecting pollen – the network ‘logic’ is there but only evident as network of intensities and movements without any persistant extensity of form . From a more practical point of view we can see here perhaps a nascent example of the recording and feeding back of the user’s interaction via a re-presentation of that data. The emerging ‘topology’ provides us of an image of the network produced by user’s interactions. There is much to say here about the relation between the intensities that give rise to the perception of an extensive impression of the network ‘in experience’ – between the intensive force of networked coalescence and what Delueze calls its manifest ‘extensity’ (Deleuze, D&R: 2004, p.281). We really don’t see this illustrated here but we do once we see this experiment modulated by different modes of persistence provided via the visualizations of subsequent examples.
Yogop No.6 Finger Tracks Study B:
Study B marks a dramatic difference in relation to the initial study by giving the paths recorded by the end-user a ‘tail’ and their interactions a ‘blip’ of temporal persistence. Here the emerging network constituted by users interactions becomes much more evident as the paths provided by the colourful tales trailing the recorded movements of user’s cross over or double each other. The addition of this visual persistence begins to provide and extensive manifestation of the otherwise momentary (momentous/eventful ?) interactions of the system’s use. This persistence is achieved by a flattening out of a temporal dimension into a planar representation. In recording the interactions you are a sole user given no indication of the movements of other users. When this is visualized via the ‘flattening’ or ‘spatialization’ and the addition of other forms of visual persistence the points of intersection and overlap become much more prevalent – we might suggest that these are zones of information density – at the very least they realize points of relationality and maybe in that respect mark collaborative lines of flight…. perhaps…
Yogop No.7 Finger Tracks Study C1 : This study leaves the grid behind and concentrates on reducing the potential for interaction to a horizontal track. This provides Nakamura with a spatial dimension with which ‘flatten’ another degree of temporal persistence into the visualization. The Study represents the user’s movements by drawing a vertical line at their location on a horizontal plane. The speed with which the user is moving determines the direction and degree of slant of the line. Here we are able to see not only the zones of intersection or overlap – indeed the design of the interface/interaction reduces any interest in the particular zones of intersection by reducing the navigational plane to one dimension so all paths interact all the time. Here though we see another layer of intensive relationality given an extensive quality via visualization – speed and acceleration. Here there are two related points of interest to be noted and perhaps expanded; 1) The reduction of the plane of interaction and 2) the extensity provided by the spatialization of intensive characteristics of interaction. It should perhaps also be noted that in all the examples up to this point the extensity provided by the visualization of the ‘fingertracks’ never folds/feeds back into the production of the network. The exercises that follow realize the potential of this extensity to feedback in an intensive modulation of network potential.
Yogop No.8 Finger Tracks Study C2 : This study simply gives the previous iteration an ‘infinite’ persistence – every vertical line is represented for each of the users. We can switch individual users interactions on and off at will. The dynamic of interaction has been effectively linearized given a kind of stasis via abstraction. Its an appealing image and perhaps that appeal lies in its beautiful fine-line capture of a complexity too dense, to intensive’ to otherwise grasp or contain – a classic reduction of movement to form.
Yogop No.9 Finger Tracks Study D1 : This study moves away form the previous ones in one important respect. Here the recording of the users movements is done as they interact with recorded interactions of previous users. The Study draws a single line between two users. On the ‘plane’ of that line is text that is dynamically tilted according to the angle of the line giving it a 3 dimensional effect as it swings and inverts ‘around’ the line. The text gives us pure geometric data; DY DX – the difference between the points on each access. The size of the font is determined by the values DX and DY. The text represents the relational becoming/definition of the users. At first its not entirely clear whether the users represented by the movements on the screen are there with you in real-time or whether their information is being played back. There is something interesting about network persistence in this non-difference between the present and the past and its relation to the generative potential – or emerging futurity of the network. Yugo may not have read the formulation of difference in Difference and Repititon but here it is nicely demonstrated – the content is always in between. This point also folds into a sense of non-difference between the binaries self-other and now-then; That could be me over ‘there’ at an earlier ‘time’ – what does that makes the line drawn between ‘us’?
Yugop No.10 Finger Tracks Study D2 : Another iteration of the above that extends example to multiple users. Here we really do begin to see the dynamism of a network of interactions. Note the differences between the first fingertracks iteration and this one. We started with a static grid with which an individual interacted and which gave provided an extensive representation of communality that was produced according to the (differential) force and flows generated between the realization of ‘Nothing’ and the virtual promise of ‘Something’. We end up here where there is almost a collaborative propulsion of users away from each other into a distributed formation according to the realization that it is the difference between them that is generative. This tells us a lot about network visuality…. I hope someone gets far enough through this epic to either agree or not…
The final 2 iterations are really just different ways of actually drawing the interactions between users. So I won’t go on any more.
Yogop No.22 Finger Tracks Study E1
Yogop No.23 Finger Tracks Study F1
In fact I might split this post in two or three…..the rest is on its way.