THE CREATIVE CODING START

The Politics of Big Data Aesthetics
By Morten Sondergaard

What is Big Data- very big data sets that may be studied in order to find patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behaviour and interactions

Big Data Representations from different perspectives in:

-Conceptualizations of control on the Internet
-Sensibilities in ubiquitous environments
-Art interventions
-Conceptual beauty
…and from different theoretical positions:
-Media studies
-Empirical analysis
-Art studies
-Social constructivism
-Media aesthetics/Post-Kantian phenomenology (duty, rather than emotions or an end goal)

There is a fear of Big Data because people believe that it can bring full control to the ones monitoring/working with it. This technology could alter the way people think (socially and culturally).
Anders Koed Madsen (in Beyond the Bubble) says that the big data is essentially driven by how we as citizens accept it.
Ulrik Schmidt (in Datamasser og sansemiljoer) talks about the aesthetics of big data. He says that the aesthetics of big data are “staged” in scenes like it is done in the theatre. He also looks at the difference between how people use big data for information or for a sensory experience.
Falk Heinrich (in Big Data Aesthetics and the Question of Beauty Data) shares about the dilemma of visualization of big data having a stronger link with the Kantian Phenomenology or represents aspects of beauty.
Mark Hansen suggests that parts of big data are merely avoiding aesthetics, which could lead to a big disruption, however there is plenty evidence pointing in the opposite direction.
The database is a very important part of the electronic big data because it is what makes the huge difference between it and the non-electronic big data. The database has a huge effect on representation.
Lev Manovich (in The Language of New Media) argues that the database as a medium s actually a very human process and that it is only masked by technology.
Jacques Ranciere (in The Politics of Aesthetics) shows us that the distribution of sensible information is in-between politics and aesthetics and it could be argued that the electronic medium of this distribution is in fact the one of big data.

Facebook wants to know why you didn’t publish that status update you started writing.
By Jennifer Golbeck

These not posted thoughts are called “self-censorship”

There is a study about the “self-censorship behavior” written by Sauvik Das & Adam Kramer. This study looks into the posts that you typed in, but end up deleting. The code in Facebook automatically recognized what has been typed into a text box and sends metadata back to Facebook.

Some may consider these an intrusion of our privacy, because users of Facebook do not expect their thought to be collected and do not intentionally give their consent on their storage.

In the Data Use Policy it is said that Facebook can and will collect information, which you share “view or otherwise interact with”. Furthermore the Facebook “team” believes that this “self-censorship” is a way of interaction and so they have the rights to it.

When Facebook claims to keep this written but not shared thoughts of people for noble purposes is when Facebook admits their wrongdoing, yet reinforces it even more. They claim that this data is kept for the benefit of everyone, “because it withholds value”

DATAFICATION

In this weeks' task I have been asked to visualise data through utilising an API. My sketch and code are beneath and I will be answering the following questions:
Which API have you chosen? and Why?
Please indicate if your work requires to download and run on our own computer.
Can you describe your process of making this mini exercise in terms of acquiring, processing, using and representing data?
What is your reflection on the aesthetics of (big) data?

First of all I have chosen the API of openweathermap.org which is a website providing weather forecasts for any city you choose. The data I have drawn from the API consists in elements such as:minimum and maximum temperature, pressure, humidity, wind speed, clouds and etc.

My work does not require to download and run on your own computer because I have put screenshots of the code above.

The process of creating this was fairly simple because of the website I have chosen. It is very easy to subscribe and obtain a KEY for the API, which is a necessity nowadays. The data is also quite good in terms of having a wide variety of sources you can choose from. Considering it is the ongoing data of the changing weather one can only assume it would be constantly changing which would be very useful in a case where on is creating a big project.

In my case I have just used the data to create ellipses depending on the temperature and humidity of the weather and I have done that by creating a variable at the beginning of the code called 'var weather', 'this weather' is later on mentioned again in the draw function before outlining the ellipses corresponding to the temperature and humidity.

As for my reflection on the aesthetics of big data.... I believe I have expanded on that relating to Sondergaards work at the beginning of this blog post.