Data is very valuable, it has many applicabilities. From creating competitive advantage to improving State security, managing traffic flow or even developing new health treatments. It is often heard that “Data is the oil of the XXIst century” and that it is crucial to excel in today’s business world. However, is that all that we can use data for? Artists such as Nathalie Miebach and Laurie Frick don’t think so.
Art is and has always been inevitably linked to societal, cultural and, ultimately, technological advances. Prehistoric cavemen handprinted their walls with mixes of natural pigments, as that is all they had. Monet experimented with the natural light and colours that so much characterise his pieces thanks to the the portable paint tube. And, Warhol wouldn’t have been Warhol without Marilyn Monroe or the mass production of Campbell soup cans. Technology shaped art then, and it is doing it now.
Data can be used as inspiration or material for the creation of aesthetic pieces. An example of this is the work of Nathalie Miebach. For years, she has gathered weather information such as barometric pressure, wind speed or temperatures; and made physical as well as musical pieces out of it. Miebach is fascinated by the weather, she said “Weather is an amalgam of systems that is inherently invisible to most of us. So I use sculpture and music to make it, not just visible, but also tactile and audible”.
But art can also be used as a medium for data representation, and to showcase the important messages behind that data. Art has, in many occasions, the goal to pose ethical and political questions, or to raise awareness of certain topics. Laurie Frick, former professional in the tech industry having worked at companies like HP and Compaq, now dedicates her time to creating installations and images based on data. From her tracked moods (Moodjam 1), to the different stages experienced by ALS patients (7 Stages), she sheds light on those topics such as mental health or rare diseases, with the aim of raising public awareness and triggering conversations in the field.
Whether data is used as a base for aesthetic creation, or art is the medium to represent the power and meaning behind data, the link between both is irrefutable, and the mix is exciting!
References:
LAURIE FRICK. (2019). LAURIE FRICK. [online] Available at: https://www.lauriefrick.com [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].
Urist, J. (2019). How Data Became a New Medium for Artists. [online] The Atlantic. Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/05/the-rise-of-the-data-artist/392399/ [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].
Miebach, N. (2019). Transcript of “Art made of storms”. [online] Ted.com. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/nathalie_miebach/transcript#t-2667 [Accessed 16 Oct. 2019].
Hi Paula,
Thanks for this interesting blogpost! I really like to see the applications of different technology has in art – virtual reality, interactive artworks, 3D printing, and so on. I hadn’t seen those yet!
Data visualisation is becoming increasingly popular among artists. An example I like is the one of Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg. They have made an impressionistic artwork that displays the wind patterns throughout the US. Although it is simply data available through the National Digital Forecast database, it gives an abstract and impressive piece of art – it can be found on the New Atlas website I put down below.
Of course, whenever it comes to data visualisation, the line is really thin – when is it science and when is it art? A pie chart also falls within the data visualisation category, but it is not regarded to be a piece of art (usually); it is simply conveying information. I haven’t found the answer yet – what are your thoughts on this?
https://newatlas.com/art-ones-and-zeros-data-visualization/49926/
https://www.bareconductive.com/news/the-rise-of-technology-in-art/
Hi Isabel,
Thanks for your comment and for your examples – I did not know them! I have actually been giving the topic of data visualisation some thought, and my humble conclusion would be that it depends on the motive behind the creation of such data visualisation. A pie chart created to summarize the sales of your company, in my opinion, is clearly not art. However, data visualisations that are intended to be shown to the broader public, with the goal of, for instance, giving a new meaning to that data set, raise awareness regarding specific topics, trigger some thoughts in society around controversial topics, or simply creating something aesthetically pleasing; can be considered as art to me. Nevertheless, as you said, the line is very thin and what art entails or not is a very broad discussion that has been carried on for many decades.
Hi Paula, thank you for your interesting insight on the fusion of data and aesthetic creation! It is very refreshing to read about alternative applications of a resource that is often viewed too one-dimensionally, solely discussing its practical, but not necessarily its creative capacities.
It is indeed even surprising how far-reaching the implications of data-driven art are: There is not just the art of visualising all sorts of data into unexpectedly captivating shapes and sculptures, but there are instances of artificial intelligence units that are capable of generating Picasso-, Freud- or Caravaggio-like pieces, simply based on learning from the artists’ original works and their visual dynamics. This has also been used very successfully to imitate (fake) popular and very complex paintings and might soon be applied to sculpturing through the use of 3D printing.
This, to me, is exceptional and very exciting, as we might no longer be limited to human creative impulses in order to enjoy art, but will soon be able to view a broad range of beautiful artworks that are in fact created by AI. This could broaden our horizon to new textures and combinations, perhaps inspiring us to new groundbreaking human art.
What I would like to ask you, however, since you seem to have an outspoken interest in art, is if you are at all afraid that the increase in popularity of data- and technology-based art could harm the inherent idea of art as being something born from non-systematic, non-mathematic processes. As far as I am concerned, art in its purest form is meant to be the product of pure inspiration; a muse that might spontaneously happen to the artist and is as close to chaos as we can get without losing control of our creation… or maybe even so far that we do lose control and get to thrive in that ambiguity. In any case, art, traditionally, is not calculated or methodised, but created from the opposite of order and planning, one might argue. Now, AI, for example, does nothing but calculating and patterning. So do you have any issues with data-driven processes entering the art-sphere and upsetting the traditional notion of creation?
Hey Basti,
Thanks for your thoughtful comment! To briefly answer your question, no – I am not afraid of the increased use of data and technology in the creation of art. As I mentioned in my post, art has always been linked to sociocultural and technological advancements, and it is that which has allowed it to change and evolve from Rembrandt to Frida Kahlo, Yves Klein to Richard Serra, or Picasso to Dalí. In my opinion, it is interesting to see how art, and our conception of it, changes across time.
The extent to which we can consider art that which has been generated by purely algorithm-driven technologies, such as AI, is answered (or not) by the question “how do we define what art is?”, which is one that has been carried along for many decades. What does a piece need to entail to be considered art? Is it based on the motives behind its creation? Can we base it off on the techniques learned and applied by the so-called artists? Is it an innate feeling of creation or a learned technique? Does it need to be aesthetically pleasing or thought-triggering? What is its function? These are questions that have been posed and discussed, without very conclusive answers, for a long time – and I see the convergence between art and 21st century technologies as a new and exciting door to more discussions. At the end of the day, that is what I like about art: like in philosophy, nothing is set on stone and it is always open for interpretation.
Hi Paula, your blog post was a great read! As Bastian already pointed out, it is refreshing to read about data-driven technologies being applied to the creative arts, a discipline not often equated with technology.
In the blog and comments you seemed to discuss in quite some depth the possibilities and limitations that data science technologies can bring to paintings, sculptures and other forms of physical art, but I would like to bring up another art discipline where AI can make a big impact; in music composition. In the past few years, AI algorithms have been able to produce pieces of composition, by learning from the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart etc. This is fairly exciting, however this is being taken a step further. Data scientists and musicians are working together to create personalised and interactive pieces of music that are composed to suit your mood, life events or musical tastes. Here is a great TED talk that I remember watching specifically about this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYb3Wimn01s
What do you think of the possibilities that AI can bring to music?
Hey Paula!
Thank you for your post, it is super interesting! Never thought of data in an artist is manner, and I find your blog to bring a new light and perspective on data and new technologies. I think we often forget that art, in all of it’s many ways, is and has always been our best way of conveying abstract, emotional and deep information.
Would also bee cool to see more companies realizing this and making use of this!
Gracias!
Paula