Data are constantly flowing around us. By capturing signals, we can weave data into sceneries. In the digital era, massive data are continuously analyzed and sorted out. Then, they are computed and used to create an order from certain perspectives to become readable information, just like what the protagonist in Matrix sees—everything comprises data flows. Even though we can never be the savior, artists can now use algorithms to tease out data and propose their own viewpoints, converting information into fuels that drive their works and visualizing data into sceneries of light and sound.
In the era of electronic community today, corporations have been gathering massive information as the digital footprints of user experience, such as user data and visitor behaviors, to formulate marketing strategies or design custom interfaces. Such gold-mining approaches enabled by big data have become ubiquitous nowadays. Nevertheless, in the field of artistic creation, viewing data analyses and algorithmic results as artistic works already emerged in the 90s ensuing the invention of the Internet. For instance, in 1993, ART+COM developed a work called Terravision, which used the global positioning system and data of satellite imagery for computation that allowed the work to move above planet Earth and visualize specific locations. Users only needed to type in their addresses, and the work would be able to endlessly enlarge aerial images taken from space, and show seamlessly images all the way from space to their houses. In addition, this work “inspired” the later invention of Google Earth. However, the differences between Terravision and modern satellite GPS system can be found in their dissimilar purposes, processes, and ways of presentation after data are induced into information by the artists—that is, the pursuit of aesthetic computing. The objective of aesthetic computing is to apply theories and practices of tech art and visual design to the field of computer science and computing, and vice versa. The aesthetic scope in art is much wider than that in mathematics and computing, in the latter of which aesthetics is usually equivalent to optimality criteria (e.g., elegant proof, crossing point of minimal line). Therefore, these new areas encourage to expand the categories of aesthetic appreciation based on art in application, and further include fundamental elements of computing, such as programs, models, and data.
After Frieder NAKE and Georg NEES held the world’s first art exhibition featuring computer-generated images – Computer-Grafik (1965), Frank POPPER and Roy ASCOTT co-created the first work that connected artists remotely – LA PLISURE DU TEXTE (1983), which made use of the telecommunication system to send texts for co-creation. On the other hand, in his work, Legible City (1989), Jeffery SHAW invited audience to hop on a physical bicycle installation and wander through a virtual city constructed by poetic lines and words visualized in the three-dimensional form. This is probably the first virtual reality artwork that immersed audience in digital information. At that time, although these works were subject to software and hardware limitations, such as computing and transmission speed, and could only operate using simple graphs or texts, they were undoubtedly precedents of generative art that engaged audience in participation and remote co-creation. Such way of operation, which utilized program codes to exchange local or off-site data for computing to create works, is now on the verge of becoming the mainstream approach in the making of contemporary digital art.
These avant-garde experimentalists, instead of being viewed as artists, should probably be called programmers or computer scientists, which is probably more suitable. They had the luxury to use rare research equipment, such as room-size computers and high-end graphics cards in labs, to develop programs without practical functions for society whatsoever with the uncommon resource at their disposal—it was indeed the genesis of what is now called “creative coding.” Furthermore, the precise definition of creative coding today is to develop expressive rather than functional computer programs. Since the 80s, the flourishing development of microprocessor and integrated circuit (IC) has propelled and ushered in the popularity of person computers. Computer was no longer unattainable lab equipment; and writing non-functional programs was not something one should feel guilty about anymore, either. The result of iteration could simply be a picture, a painting, or an audio segment. Artists could finally be able to afford inexpensive computers to make art. In addition to intuitive graphics software and digital music composition, some artists also began thinking about artistic creation through programming.
In the late 90s, John MAEDA, who was an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the time, led a group of students to develop an open source cross-platform experiment for teaching programming – Design By Numbers (DBN). It was designed to help programmers, artists and other people working in fields unrelated to programming, and enable them to easily start making art with programming. It was an epoch-making project with lasting influences, which inspired Maeda’s students to take a step further to create a wide range of open source software, hardware, and art communities. Casey REAS and Ben FRY launched Processing, an integrated development environment (IDE), and established a creative community that later gave birth to Arduino, an open source embedded hardware platform. Zachary LIEBERMAN, Theo WATSON and Arturo CASTRO founded the cross-platform C++ library toolkit for creative coding – Openframworks, which is based on the objective of “Do It With Others” (DIWO) to encourage other communities to develop and expand the library. Comparing to these command-line interfaces (CLI) mentioned above, in terms of graphical user interface, after Miller PUCLETTE left the Max/MSP project, which he helped develop at IRCAM and was later commercialized, he created the open source cross-platform node-based visual programming language, known as Pure Data, which can be used in the making of interactive computer music and multimedia work. These open source digital tools have largely lowered the barrier to engage in aesthetic computing, allowing programming to serve as a creative instrument in an extensive way while enabling artists to explore endless possibility.
Creative coding software as a creative instrument for artists not only demonstrate machinic characteristics, such as precision and the ability to create considerable repetitions, but also reveal certain inherent properties of computer science that gradually influence the way artists think and work, namely, randomness and order. The nature of programs is mathematics and logic computing. From using creative instruments to representing ideas and intentions in their minds, artists have gradually shifted to the approach of designing a set of rules and methods, which feed on input data to produce unexpected results that match preset conditions. Therefore, these rules and methods – otherwise known as algorithms – can be viewed as an inseparable part of works—this is what is known as generative art. When Ryoji IKEDA proclaimed to the world that informational data could be seen as a form of spectacles, more artists started inputting data into their functions to create the automatic writing and happening of this generation, constructing the scenery of dataflow.
The 2023 International Light Festival adopts the theme of Scenery of Dataflow to discuss how data have become the foundation that supports and drives artistic creation throughout the development of contemporary tech art, introducing fluidly and diversity into art exhibitions and performances. The festival features nine Taiwanese artists/art groups from Taiwan, the US, Japan, and Ukraine/Spain. They are six Taiwanese artists/art groups, including WANG Lien-Cheng, TSAI Yi-Ting, CHANG Hsin-Yu, TSAI Ning, 404 N.F, 2Enter, and three foreign artists/art groups, namely, Zachary LIEBERMAN (US), KASAHARA Shunichi/HIGA Satoru/KANDA Ryu (Japan), and Iury LECH (Ukraine/Spain)/WU Ping-Sheng (Taiwan). Reflection Studies by Lieberman, Fragment Shadow by Kasahara, Higa, and Kanda, as well as Postulate Extended from Non-Euclidean Geometry by Wang are good examples of engaging audience in intervening into data computing, allowing their interactions with the artworks to generate artistic contents. Tree Noise by Chang and Whisper by TSAI Ning both utilize sensors to detect biological data from plants or the audience, converting sensory information into visual effect of light and producing waves of sound and light. Lighting Flower by TSAI Yi-Ting and Grass by 404 N.F use data to reflect sculptural volume, thus engendering the volume of light and vast sceneries characterized by breathing rhythm, as if they were living creatures feed on data. Frontier01 by 2ENTER draws its material from massive data flows from internet websites, and utilizes 5G internet to capture real-time data for depicting a sci-fi space station, where reality and virtuality intersect. Using mobile devices, audience can interact with the work to shape the sceneries. Quantum of Light Inside Time collaborated by Lech and Wu presents an off-site co-performance created remotely in Spain and Taiwan. Using 5G low-latency real-time exchange, the work is an immersive multi-channel audiovisual work. These works will be displayed in the museum and in its outdoor space with their respective brilliance, constructing a splendid scenery of dataflow.
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2023 Taiwan International Light Festival
Scenery of Dataflow
Exhibition Period｜2022/12/03 SAT. ⇝ 2023/02/05 SUN.
Area｜Outdoor Area+ U-108 SPACE, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
Title
2023 Taiwan International Light Festival｜Scenery of DataflowType
Festival / BiennialWebsite
Organizers
From
December 03, 2022 09:00 AMUntil
February 05, 2023 10:00 PMVenue
National Taiwan Museum of Fine ArtsAddress