Nov 21, 2016
Han Sai Por: Moving Forest @ the Singapore Tyler Print Institute
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Han Sai Por: Moving Forest @ the Singapore Tyler Print Institute
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Sensing the Landscape. What does that mean? In this mid-term project I collected sensor data, specifically light values, and mapped them to corresponding notes using the western music language. The result is then manipulated to create an entirely new sensory experience that perhaps alludes to its original source. Here I attempt to explore the translation of data as it travels through time and medium. From source to digital to language and finally to the human senses. Is the original source of any importance? Or is the final result? What might it mean for both the artist and the audience?
(Related links on music and composition posted.)
Reading Response: Data Visualization as New Abstraction and Anti-Sublime/Contemporary Sublime
For me, the sublime exists not in the object nor the space, but in the human and personal connection between the space and us. The expanse of a landscape, the intimacy of a room, can be sublime. But it is only sublime because our minds perceive it as such and it is not a trait that is inherent in any particular object in and of itself. This agrees to a certain extent with some of the philosophical theories that Simon Morley mentions in his essay, on the fact that the sublime is “not so much a formal quality of some natural phenomenon as a subjective conception - something that happens in the mind.” (Page 3) Thus, from this perspective, I would be looking at Manovich’s point of view of data and the anti-sublime.
In Manovich’s point of view, data visualisation is contrary to the Romantic idea of the sublime as it attempts to render something beyond the scale of the human senses into something within reach. However, I would argue that instead of being anti-sublime, data visualisation propagates the sublime. For when one compares the “indescribable” emotions that we get in exploring subliminal landscapes and experiences, it is often because we see, feel or sense something tangible and within our reach. But yet because we are able to sense these things, we come to the realise that there is a much larger phenomenon that we would never truly be able to grasp. (Morley, on Kant’s philosophical theory on the sublime, page 3)
The grand Yosemite mountains visually reveal their strength through their size and height but we could never truly logically nor emotionally grasp the micro and macro geological expanse and intricacies that have build our landscape over the course of the life of the Earth. Similarily, the subliminal beauty we get from viewing images of the Earth or the solar system from space is because we have technologies that allow us to see these images, but yet there is a whole expanse of things we cannot perceive or grasp with the limitations of our minds and current technology. Therefore, in my opinion, the sublime comes about only because there is something tangible to represent something intangible. Which is exactly what the data visualisations that Manovich discusses aim to do. On Data Mapping: With regards to the arbitrariness of data mapping, the consideration of mapping has been on my mind since the start of the class and I have come to the same problems that Manovich mentions in his text. What decides the method in which I map and present my data? Ultimately what choices should I make and how or why should I make those particular choices?
Trouble with Wilderness
According to Cronon, the trouble with wilderness is not the physical landscapes in themselves but the fact that the romantic notions we have of such places are a cultural construct. We often think of it as a space that is naturally uninhabited, forgetting the histories of having made the people who live on the land such as the native Indians in North America move elsewhere to allow us to view the place in its “pristine, original state.” (Page 9). Thus, the human element of creating this ‘natural space’ is often forgotten. Furthermore, with this romantic ideal, we ultimately idealise the ‘untouched’ wilderness to create a dualism between nature/human (Page 11). With this perspective, “the nature is where the human is not” and thus we can never provide any solutions to the environmental issues we face. I agree with Cronon to a large extent in his analysis of our perception of nature. I myself have been guilty of such perspectives as this human/nature duality has become so pertinent in our contemporary society, allowing us to desensitise ourselves to the troubles, with the excuse that we could never make anything better for our very existence disturbs nature. Also, Cronon looks at how an overemphasis as the preservation of wilderness may lead us to forget and ignore the environmental issues that plague humans as we put it on a lower pedestal as compared to saving the ‘natural’ environment (Page 15). This would also result in even more extreme dualities as places remain pristine and preserved while others are polluted with increasing industrialisation. Thus, as we continue to deal with environmental issues today, Cronon reminds us that nature and human are not separate, and we often forget that the relationship is symbiotic and also related to economic/technological power on a global stage (Page 15). We cannot simply cast any use of the environment as abuse, but instead find a middle ground whereby we can use, interact and live with the environment sustainably (Page 16).