An exploration of information visualisation through new media art practice

目的和目标：研究目标在于通过新媒体艺术实践产生思想、过程和概念，允许重新思考信息可视化工具的作用，而不是它们目前作为数据分析目的的技术图像的生成器的目的。这些目标有以下目标：i)生产新媒体艺术作品、展览和文本，使信息可视化的科学过程能够在更广泛的批评和美学框架内重新定位。ii)探索新媒体艺术家如何就视觉艺术中代表性图像的角色和功能的不同理解进行谈判，Iii)开发新媒体艺术项目，通过对底层数据集的视觉界面的产生的实验方法，使观众能够从概念、美学和临界点进入与信息可视化设备及其更广泛的文化意义有关的辩论。iv)确定在展示和装置场景中，对于观众理解与信息可视化有关的新媒体艺术作品所需要的阶段性和语境知识。目前，新媒体艺术中的话语主要是关于互动性和/或互联网的争论，然而，很少有研究专门关注图像在信息可视化学科中所扮演的角色，信息可视化学科是一种新兴媒介，寻求通过基于量化的抽象数据(通常是从股市行为或气候变化测量)生成交互式动画图像来理解世界。新媒体艺术和信息可视化学科有着共同的目标，因为它们寻求通过生成交互式动画图像来理解世界。然而，虽然新媒体艺术是从艺术理论对图像的当代批判性理解(作为存在于解释链或对话中的概念性或多价性图像)中获得信息，但信息可视化学科通常不允许其图像具有不同或多重解读，因为它们的主要技术和概念目标是使潜在的量化数据能够清晰地分析。拟议的研究的意义在于它将如何弥合不同学科之间对图像的不同概念。它将通过在新媒体艺术实践中理解的对图像的批判性理解中重新定位信息可视化的过程、技术和图像来产生新的知识(即，作为一种形式，其含义随着不同的受众和更广泛的历史、社会和文化背景而变化)。通过这样做，该项目补充和扩展了它所在学科领域的现有知识，因为它：有助于并扩大新媒体艺术的实践；有助于关于图像在可视化技术中的功能和意义的想法；讨论如何在现有的艺术实践中改变信息可视化图像的用途，以便为新媒体艺术的创新表现策略提供信息。潜在的应用和好处除了向新媒体艺术的理论和实践提供信息外，潜在的应用包括：a.向高等教育背景下的学生和公众传授研究知识(通过公开展览、网站和讲座)。产生的想法将为有关艺术和科学的交叉的学术辩论提供信息。1.威斯敏斯特大学的研究环境在对新媒体技术关键应用的前沿研究方面享有盛誉。艺术和设计从业者、学术研究人员、对新媒体艺术和科学过程的文化方法感兴趣的教育工作者和评论家。对新媒体艺术感兴趣的国内外艺术爱好者。资助和委托机构，促进艺术和设计与技术交叉领域的良好做法和研究(例如，艺术理事会、AHRC、英国文化委员会、EPSRC)。

Aims and objectives:Research objectives lie in the generation of ideas, processes and concepts through new media art practices, which allow for rethinking the role of 1nformation visualisation' apparatus, beyond their current purpose as generators of technical images for the purpose of data analysis.These objectives have the following aims:i) To produce new media artworks, exhibitions and texts, that enables scientific processes of information visualisation to be relocated within wider critical and aesthetic frameworks.ii) To explore how new media artists negotiate the different understandings of the role and function of representational images in the visual arts, verses the production and understanding of technical images in scientific disciplines of information visualisation.iii) To develop new media art projects, through experimental approaches to the production of visual interfaces to underlying data sets, which enable audiences' conceptual, aesthetic and critical points of entry into debates pertaining to information visualisation apparatus and their wider cultural significance.iv) To identify what is required in terms of staging and contextualising knowledge for audience understanding o new media artworks concerned with information visualisation, in exhibition and installation situations.The context of the researchThis study brings together understandings of two fields: new media art and the scientific discipline of information visualisation. Discourses in new media art are currently dominated by debates concerning interactivity and/or the Internet, however, little research exists that specifically looks to the role played by the image in information visualisation disciplines, an emerging medium that seeks to understand the world through the generation of interactive animated images based on quantified abstract data (typically measurements from stock market behaviours or climate change).New media art and information visualisation disciplines share a common purpose because they seek to understand the world through the generation of interactive animated images. However, whereas new media art is informed by contemporary critical understandings of the image from art theory (as a conceptual or multivalent image that exists in a chain or dialogue of interpretations), information visualisation disciplines generally do not allow for their images to have divergent or multiple readings, because their primary technical and conceptual aim is to enable clear analysis of the underlying quantitative data.The significance of the proposed research lies in how it will bridge the differing conceptions of the image between the disciplines. It will generate new knowledge by relocating the processes, technologies and images of information visualisation within critical understandings of the image as understood in new media art practice (i.e. as a form whose meaning shifts in relation to differing audience and wider historical, social and cultural contexts). In doing so, the project complements and extends existing knowledge of the subject areas in which it is situated because it: Contributes to and expands the practices of new media arts; Contributes to ideas concerning the function and meaning of the image in visualisation technologies; Discusses how information visualisation images may be repurposed within existing art practices in order to inform innovative representational strategies for new media art.Potential applications and benefitsIn addition to informing the theory and practice of new media art, potential applications include:a. Knowledge transfer of research to students in higher educational contexts and members of the public (via public exhibition, the website and lectures).b. Production of ideas that will inform academic debates pertaining to the intersection of art and science.c. Contribution to debates concerning the processes and objects of practice-based research.Research benefits also accrue for the following national and international audiences:1. The University of Westminster's research environment which has an international reputation for cutting edge research into critical applications of new media technologies.2. Art and design practitioners, academic researchers, educators and critics interested in new media art, and cultural approaches to scientific processes.3. National and international members of the art-going public interested in new media art.4. Funding and commissioning bodies that promote good practice and research in areas in which art and design intersects with technology (e.g. The Arts Council, AHRC, British Council, EPSRC).