We present "archival liveness" as a concept in design and the Digital Humanities and describe its... more We present "archival liveness" as a concept in design and the Digital Humanities and describe its development within a Research Through Design process. Working with a newly acquired archive of contemporary poetry we produced designs that both manifested and "geared in to" [Durrant 2011] [Gurwitsch 1979] the temporal rhythms of the work and infrastructure of archiving. Drawing on user-centred work with participants, often poets themselves, we focused on marginalia as a material feature of the archive, developing a drawing machine and live Twitter bot. Our work addresses institutional concerns for outreach and engagement while also acknowledging and exploiting the inevitably incomplete or live character of archival collections. For designers working with digital archives, we demonstrate the pragmatic and critical value of liveness as a focus of the design process.
This short paper is a sketch of some pragmatic considerations for the use of data in the producti... more This short paper is a sketch of some pragmatic considerations for the use of data in the production of artwork. My practice as an artist causes me to encounter data as a series of daily material questions and this has encouraged me to develop a series of brief theoretical propositions and practical methodologies which will be outlined here. An overview of some art historical, broader culture or creative and lastly ontological imperatives for the consideration of data as an artistic material will be followed by some examples of data materialist art practice from my own work. These last will illustrate some simple methodologies which I have adopted.
Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA2013, 2013
The development of critical discourse and experi- mental practices in computer art of the 1960s a... more The development of critical discourse and experi- mental practices in computer art of the 1960s and 1970s was informed by new forms of collaboration between artists, scientists and institutions. This paper acknowledges the debt owed by modern visualization practice to developments of this period but suggests that much of the artistic and philosoph- ical legacy has been largely ignored in this area. It is argued that criticality in visualization practice should be informed by a number of aspects of 1960s and 1970s computer art practice, including implica- tions for collaborative practice, thinking about mediation and the integration of aesthetics with life experience.
Smart Graphics, Lecture Notes in Computer Science , 2010
Sticking point is a data visualisation project which compares sections of national constitutions ... more Sticking point is a data visualisation project which compares sections of national constitutions pertaining to fundamental rights, freedoms, duties and obligations of citizens. Individual words from each constitution are analysed for their distinctness in comparison to other constitution texts. This analysis is presented as a visualisation which also shows relationships between different constitution texts.
At a time when it is particularly urgent to identify models of intersection across the digital an... more At a time when it is particularly urgent to identify models of intersection across the digital and cultural sector to respond to an emergent funding and policy environment, this article contributes to a body of scholarly work around designing digital interventions for museums by identifying the role of cultural content in shaping design spaces for collaboration. The context of the article is a research project that brought together magical realist literature and the development of an Augmented Reality smartphone application realised through a public programme held at a museum of children’s literature. This process created an open-ended design space within the organisation embedded into the development of public engagement workshops around magical realism and place making. It investigates how the cultural content (from archival material) occupied a key role in shaping technological development and suggests strategies that could grant autonomy and sustainability to cultural organisations in engaging in digital transformation.
We present "archival liveness" as a concept in design and the Digital Humanities and describe its... more We present "archival liveness" as a concept in design and the Digital Humanities and describe its development within a Research Through Design process. Working with a newly acquired archive of contemporary poetry we produced designs that both manifested and "geared in to" [Durrant 2011] [Gurwitsch 1979] the temporal rhythms of the work and infrastructure of archiving. Drawing on user-centred work with participants, often poets themselves, we focused on marginalia as a material feature of the archive, developing a drawing machine and live Twitter bot. Our work addresses institutional concerns for outreach and engagement while also acknowledging and exploiting the inevitably incomplete or live character of archival collections. For designers working with digital archives, we demonstrate the pragmatic and critical value of liveness as a focus of the design process.
This short paper is a sketch of some pragmatic considerations for the use of data in the producti... more This short paper is a sketch of some pragmatic considerations for the use of data in the production of artwork. My practice as an artist causes me to encounter data as a series of daily material questions and this has encouraged me to develop a series of brief theoretical propositions and practical methodologies which will be outlined here. An overview of some art historical, broader culture or creative and lastly ontological imperatives for the consideration of data as an artistic material will be followed by some examples of data materialist art practice from my own work. These last will illustrate some simple methodologies which I have adopted.
Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Electronic Art, ISEA2013, 2013
The development of critical discourse and experi- mental practices in computer art of the 1960s a... more The development of critical discourse and experi- mental practices in computer art of the 1960s and 1970s was informed by new forms of collaboration between artists, scientists and institutions. This paper acknowledges the debt owed by modern visualization practice to developments of this period but suggests that much of the artistic and philosoph- ical legacy has been largely ignored in this area. It is argued that criticality in visualization practice should be informed by a number of aspects of 1960s and 1970s computer art practice, including implica- tions for collaborative practice, thinking about mediation and the integration of aesthetics with life experience.
Smart Graphics, Lecture Notes in Computer Science , 2010
Sticking point is a data visualisation project which compares sections of national constitutions ... more Sticking point is a data visualisation project which compares sections of national constitutions pertaining to fundamental rights, freedoms, duties and obligations of citizens. Individual words from each constitution are analysed for their distinctness in comparison to other constitution texts. This analysis is presented as a visualisation which also shows relationships between different constitution texts.
At a time when it is particularly urgent to identify models of intersection across the digital an... more At a time when it is particularly urgent to identify models of intersection across the digital and cultural sector to respond to an emergent funding and policy environment, this article contributes to a body of scholarly work around designing digital interventions for museums by identifying the role of cultural content in shaping design spaces for collaboration. The context of the article is a research project that brought together magical realist literature and the development of an Augmented Reality smartphone application realised through a public programme held at a museum of children’s literature. This process created an open-ended design space within the organisation embedded into the development of public engagement workshops around magical realism and place making. It investigates how the cultural content (from archival material) occupied a key role in shaping technological development and suggests strategies that could grant autonomy and sustainability to cultural organisations in engaging in digital transformation.
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