[-empyre-] scalable relations-- how does this matter? (orde-materialize?)

[Christiane_Paul at whitney.org]

Thanks so much for the introduction, Christina!

As you pointed out, "Scalable Relations" is a 'networked' exhibition that features work created by faculty members of the University of California Digital Arts Research network (UCDARnet - http://www.ucdarnet.org).

The exhibition takes place in four venues (see http://www.ucdarnet.org/scalablerelations/venue.php) and each of them addresses a different aspect of "Scalable Relations":

BEALL CENTER: Patterns and Complexity - From Nature to City and Infosphere
UCSD: Playing the World(s) Gaming
UCLA: Science, Ethics, Public Health, and Social Conditions
UCSB: Complex Behaviors and Transmodalities

You'll find the general introduction to the exhibition here:
http://www.ucdarnet.org/scalablerelations/scalablerelations.php

On to your questions...

>I want to start by asking Christiane about how she may place the 'scalable' morphology as a significant discovery?  

In fact I would not call scalable relations or morphology a significant discovery at all -- it simply is an intrinsic quality of the digital medium, which has the capacity to establish relations between large quantities of data through filtering and processing according to different criteria. Perhaps this scalability was a 'discovery' at the time the relational database was formalized in the 1960s -- as a data structure that is organized and accessed according to relations between tables. The relational database implies a certain flexibility and scalability in generating new relations from existing records that meet specified criteria.

>Is 'scalable' like 'granularity' or is it something more like a series of cascading iterations? 

Definitions of scalability would include the ability of a computer application or product (hardware or software) to continue to function well as it (or its context) is changed; and the property of a system that can accommodate changes in transaction volume without major changes to the system. As such, I would see scalability as very different from granularity, which could be defined as the relative size, scale, level of detail, or depth of penetration that characterizes an object or activity. Granularity cannot adapt to context changes of the object or activity, and cascading iterations would be more like single-moment snapshots of a scalable system.

>Are these qualities valuable for us as a use factor-- or as something intrinsically beautiful, or both? 

Scalable Relations can be a use factor (when it comes to empirical investigations of data) and they can be beautiful (for me, the works in the exhibition are). I identified the concept of 'scalable relations' as a common denominator of the wide range of works that was submitted to this show (which started with a call for submissions to the UC faculty) and what interested me, in particular, was the question how these scalable relations affect both the production of meaning and the understanding of aesthetics of a work of art.

I am not looking for a single, simple answer to this question - although our discussion this month might provide some answers. I'm more interested in how this question manifests in the different works. To use just a couple of examples (I hope the artists can chime in and we can discuss the works in more detail):

Sheldon Brown's "Scalable City" (http://scalablecity.net) transforms real-world data through algorithms and makes it shape elements (roads / houses / cars) of an urban condition. In this case, issues of scalability both literally and metaphorically play out with regard to urban development and how our world is being shaped through algorithms and databases (think the algorithmic determination of distribution of chain stores; or databases that construct a social profile of a neighborhood that in turn solidifies or enhances that very profile etc.)

In a more metaphorical way, Sharon Daniel's works "Public Secrets" (http://vectors.usc.edu/issues/04_issue/publicsecrets/) and "Blood Sugar" (http://arts.ucsc.edu/sdaniel/bordertech/bloodsugar/bloodsugar.html) examine the social and political construction of justice/injustice, poverty, alienation and addiction through relations between individual testimony and public evidence and social theory. 

I'm interested in how these relations between shifting contexts affect how we understand art or the world. How can meaning be 'grounded' (or does it have to be)? Is there an increased need for stable belief systems (from religion to others) and b&w interpretations of the world because of the relativity of meaning resulting from scalable relations?

Christiane




-----Original Message-----
From: empyre-bounces at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au on behalf of Christina McPhee
Sent: Wed 2/4/2009 1:49 AM
To: empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au
Subject: [-empyre-] scalable relations-- how does this matter? (orde-materialize?)
 
dear -empyreans-

Please welcome Christiane Paul back to the list. Christiane has just opened three intertwined new shows on 'Scalable Relations'  in California.  She is bringing  to us new media productions that, in her words, "illustrate the relational qualities of the digital medium."  

http://www.ucdarnet.org/scalablerelations/scalablerelations.php

To quote her exhibition notes--   "One of the distinctive features of the digital medium is its capacity to establish relations between large quantities of data through filtering and processing according to different criteria. These constantly evolving, scalable relations affect both the production of meaning and a traditional understanding of aesthetics, which become subject to computational logic?the instructions given by algorithms?and a constant reconfiguration of contexts. The format of the exhibition itself, in its distribution across multiple venues, mirrors the relational theme of the exhibition and the inherent connectivity of the digital medium."

Hopefully this month some of the artists in "Scalable Relations" will engage with us. Meantime I want to start by asking Christiane
about how she may place the 'scalable' morphology as a significant discovery?  Is 'scalable' like 'granularity' or is it something more 
like a series of cascading iterations? Are these qualities valuable for us as a use factor-- or as something intrinsically beautiful, or both? 

-cm


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