e-Science for the Visual Arts

I'm attending the first day of the e-Science for the Visual Arts series hosted by BIAD's Visualisation Research Unit. I'm especially interested in how the development in e-science might impact the broader space for collaboration and the use of high-performance computing: What kind of things become possible when computing power is essentially limitless, all information is everywhere, and all tools are connected? The venue promises open WiFi, so I'll try to update this as the day progresses. e-Science in the Visual Arts. Dr. Gregory Sporton (UCE Birmingham): Gregory is the director of the VRU, and kicked off the day with a broad discussion of the day's agenda, and the relationship between e-science and the visual arts. Notes: Convergence between e-science practices and IT use in the visual arts. The role of Universities in developing an infrastructure for arts, and access to technologies for artists. e-Science as a term is a political tool used to release funding for large computing infrastructure: Over-supply of processing power driving a search for new customers in visual arts. The technology dominates the discussion, but it is clear that people and collaboration is at the core of this. Culture of e-Science.. needs to move away from the culture of experts which has dominated (we can learn from Post-modernism here). Moving the arts culture away from what we see to what is possible. Who owns technology? How do you develop it? How do people access it (role of Universities here and questions about how they make their infrastructure accessible)? New forms of creativity? Collaborative practice? Interactivity? Art that is unfinishable (successive approximations)? Theory running ahead of practice ("what would Marx do with this?"). Create an infrastructure–what would a useful infrastructure look like? How to link technology and creativity? Re-interpretation of training/practice. What is it to be 'creative'? What is e-Science? Dr. Thorsten Schnier (CERCIA): Thorsten is a computer scientist and engineer from Birmingham University. In his talk he focused on what actually constitutes e-Science, the problems in defining this, and what we already know. Notes: e-Science is being made up as we go along, even within the core of the field. What do we know? It constitutes infrastructure - Computing resources, networking, auxiliary services - but the 'Grid' constitutes this plus services, brokers, markets, and middleware. Example of the Se3d program from HP. New markets emerging to provide services to animators and visual creatives, rendering, with organisations like CERCIA owning software licenses and providing services, developing and driving the market. e-Science=Grid+Research? Is it more than this? Is it demand-driven or technology driven? Example projects include sharing databases, joined simulations, CPU-intensive models, multi-discipline work and data-rich experiments. Challenges and problems: Data/Software compatibility, Security/Confidentiality/Trust, Interfaces. e-collaboration. Usability of e-Science Dr. Russell Beale (CERCIA): Russell is from the Advanced Interactivity Group at Birmingham University. The problem with e-Science: It means a different thing to everyone involved, and these definitions are changing, and more being added. Notes: Different views: "only connected HPC", "mainly distributed astronomy", "Science, but on the Internet", "existing science, but with more computers", "simply a bandwagon". Bandwagons can be useful as a source of funding. Move from Single users/systems to Multiple users and single systems to Multiple users and multiple systems. Myriad influences upon Users and Systems which need to be considered (complex systems). Additionally Science itself is changing from looking for patterns to looking for anomalies? This is true also of Art. Usable design is about taking all these contextual elements into consideration (example of security with human user being the most easily hackable part of the system). Little Science, Big Science: enabling widespread data collection and assimilation. Example of bug survey from number plates/headlights across the UK. Non-scientists as sources of data: need appropriate systems with appropriate usability. Need and duty for feedback and keeping people involved, in an ethically-responsible manner. Design and Usability - the aim of design is not just usability. Slanty design - purposefully reduces functionality eg iPod shuffle. Make it simple to do simple things, hard to do unwanted things. Example of Gmail and deleting messages. Clean usability that reduces side-effects of doing things by limiting functionality. What is required for a Creative e-Workspace? Workshop - Mike Priddy: Mike's intention is to open this up to the room now - looking for examples of such spaces. Notes: Creative e-Workspaces - What are they? What do they need? Sharing and social networking sites - Flickr, YouTube etc. - how are these being used? What are the relative merits of closed environments versus open communities? Transformative Technologies or Performative gains? Michael Takeo posits that all systems entail control over possibility and that this is necessary and positive. Gregory Sporton suggests that this is well-understood but is a conscious choice on the part of the artist/originator, and that other ways are possible. Robert Sharl suggests Second Life as an example of a more open-ended environment or platform. Michael Takeo disagrees that this is a fundamental difference between code and art - that code is present in both and constitutes law and limits. TS disagrees and RB develops the idea that while code and standards are controlled, the soft layers on top (people) are dynamic and messy. The Internet is now the real world, and the distinctions are much fuzzier. Dennie Wilson brings this back to the core notion or a space for collaboration and production (as in SL this can also be the space for the work itself, or the work can extend the space). Analogies and modeling the physical world.. do we need the consistency of constraints lifted from the physical world? Julie Tolmie cites her own work as an example in which an entirely abstract mathematical concept was only in retrospect layered with terminology that grounds it in a physical, analogue world. Building the Wireframe. Discussion: Notes:

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