tim walter

according to joseph weizenbaum, a computer pioneer and later on a critic, the internet is just a dunghill that contains some sporadical valuable pearls. although this statement sounds cynical it seems to be true, being the fact that search engines and bookmarks appear to be the most popular tools to somehow locate informations. this points out that there is actually no other way to navigate through the unstructured content of the internet where, in addition to that, more and more pages are constantly created and, as a result, the chaos continues to grow.

but what makes the internet so obscure? in my opinion, first of all, the fact that it lacks to properly display the location of an information source in space and time. as a result, all the sites are places on the same unidentified space and the two essential orientation properties for navigation are eliminated. furtermore we are used to design static content, like in printed papers, with no actual interaction or networking possibilities and find it to be difficult to develop new concepts.

but referring to this i see the structure of a blog, with its reverse chronological order of the posts or the way the information is fed as a rss-stream to an application, as a starting point to create new templates of information management.

the stock exchange of visions is a traveling installation originaly created by gregor kuschmirz which tries to provide an dialog between the visions of authorities in several disciplines and a broader audience. the artwork was part of the exhibition fabrica: les yeux ouverts at the centre george pompidou in paris, the trianale in milan and now at the shiodome italia in tokyo.

first of all i like the neat and clean design of the whole page which is part of the installation with the colored areas of the topics and the simple structure of the content. this simplicity fits in with the clear concept of the project where an expert explains his vision to which the visitor can either agree or disagree. this means that – no matter how detailed the vision is or how competent you are on this subject – you have to make a choice. all these outcomes are finally calculated and displayed just like a stock.

furthermore i like the idea of trading visions like stocks and thus create a market for them. but also i am not sure if this kind of  an opinion poll is really representing the acceptance of an idea. everyone can say if he or she likes or dislikes something, which is part of the basic idea of this project. but sometimes the actual content of the project does not shape this attitude but other social factors do. here i can see the risk that one’s opinion is manipulated by other people’s rating of an idea. so if some people haven’t made up their mind yet they will automatically agree with the opinion of a bigger group or stick to the contrary opinion. the question is if this idea would also work with better developed ideas and visions.

the following installations are also based on the idea of turning virtual data into real entities or events. but in these examples it is, in contrast to the digital waterfall, the other way round, not water in the air but air in water what represents the digital information.

the first bubble screen is the information percolator which is some sort of ambient display. here the bubbles are released in one of the 32 vertical tubes what makes it possible to create different images. but especially these dominant tubes somehow disturb the clarity of the display.

another artist who is creating bubble displays is stephanie andrews. she invented the bubble screen the thinktank and lifeblood within the years 2001 and 2002. she also intends to visualize digital data but somehow obtains no real control of the bubbles, which leads to nice looking patterns but still no traceable connection between the human interaction and the effect on the visualization.

beta tank also called their piece of work “bubble screen”. it precisely emits smaller and uniform bubbles but in the end, or at least in this video, the information is somehow hard to read.

this shows that it only makes sense to show clear informations on a display with a sufficient resolution, not to prove the weakness of the device. whereas vague displays, like the early bubble installations, always allow the designer to add the same blurriness of the source onto the visualization. as a result the display doesn’t try to communicate informations it could never produce.

greyworld adopted the idea of the raising information bits and created the installation the source in the london stock exchange.

the interactive installation bitfall, is an electronical artwork by the german artist julius popp from 2005. according to him, the artwork is seperated in two circuits; on the one hand the scientific machine, and on the other hand an artistic visualization of the always changing culture. the machine consists of 128 synchronized magnetic valves, in which the emitted water drops act like pixels, falling to the ground. as a result the information can not be displayed at once, but only sequential and for a short period of time. the artistic part is simply a software which is looking for keywords on the internet.

i really like the first (or actually the second) part of the artwork, which is the giant, impressive water display. despite the explanations of julius popp in his interview, i really don’t understand the connection between the display and this specific data source. aside from that, since the stunning display was, as far as i know, originally invented by pevnick design in 1979, one could also assume that popp got the idea of using this display with showing any kind of digital information.

so i think the interesting thing about this installation, is the way it shows us the principle of digital information. by looking at the display, we realize that it only needs two states of an object to turn something meaningless, like the water, into a tool for precise communication. in this case a “opened” or “closed” valve leads to either a waterdrop or not, whereas all the drops together finally somehow teleport a meaningful word into the room.

by the way, the digital water pavillion is another interesting example of use for this old but still innovative idea.

“the atomic threat” (“die atomare drohung”) by günther anders is one of the most impressive books i have read recently. although one might say this book seems to be out-of-date since it was already written in 1986, it addresses many interesting topics about the use and social responsibility of technology. i bought this book on occasion of the lecture “man and technology” (“mensch und technik”) by professor eckert at the university of applied sciences in würzburg and i finally read it during my last summer holyday.

while i was reading the book, i only made a few notes so i won’t be able to recall the entire content but at least the basic message which is that we are so-called “inverted utopians” (“invertierte utopisten”). he defines this term as follows: “we are inverted utopians. so this is the main dilemma of our era: we are smaller than ourselves, we are thus incapable to form a picture from what we produced ourselves. In that sense we are inverted utopists: while utopists cannot produce what they imagine themselves, we cannot imagine what we produce.”

the striking message in this paragraph, in my opinion, is not the fact that we as humans are incapable of realizing the whole extent of a new technology, but rather his critical attitude and the awareness of the dilemma between the improvements and its possible and unpredictable negative consequences. so günther anders refuses the noncritical mindset about making things happen and approves a stronger theoretical examination and research. in his book “the antiquatedness of men” (“die antiquiertheit des menschen”) he further describes this thesis.

these concerns about the nuclear technology could also be applied to other technological achievements. so the interesting question is not if the technological progress in communication, transportation and production could change society for the worse, but rather what are our possibilities to foresee these consequences early enough. it seems to me that we are facing a certain gap between the possiblities of creation and the methods and tools of clarification. or perhaps it is human nature that has some sort of urge to create things without analysing its extent and perhaps refrain from doing it, in terms of acting reasonably.

so what may help us to make a decision are new ways of visualising the consequences of human behaviour, for example when displaying the publishing of personal data, the bad influences on the environment or the consequences of malnutrition. as a result this all emerges the following demand for future designers: the task is to find ways and methods in the daily routine to point out the extent of our behaviour and the possible alternatives. the designer is therefore not only reacting under the economic resonsibility of his employer but in some sort also with respect to his social resposibillity. to broaden this topic i am currently reading “the shape of things” by vilém flusser.