This experiment plays with the input and output of information and the expectations of a computer as mediator. I am interested in the mystery of the silver box in the middle of the process. I also like the idea that in order to hear the sound of wind hitting the microphone you have to generative wind.

The elevator to the museum’s third floor opens, I walk out, pause, look around and begin navigating the works counter clockwise around the room. The first piece is a large projection of beautifully colored horizontal lines slowly fading in, out and across the screen. As I get closer, I see numbers flickering in the lines. They are flickering so fast that they cannot even be read. I stand back and watch for a few seconds and begin to see how beautiful the rhythm of the lines are, the pulse of data. I move closer, and then back, and then further back, then eventually I move on to the next piece.

This is how most people encounter and respond to the spectacularization of the information.

The spectacularization of the information is the process of dressing up, or visualizing, information to make something out of it that is not relevant to the information itself, design for design’s sake. It can also be using information simply because we have it at our disposal, technology for technology’s sake. Either way, to spectacularize information is to produce a piece that is dissociated from the source and focussed on the visual outcome verses communication and representation.

But where is this data coming from? As technology continues to be integrated into every aspect of our lives, the amount of data we track becomes greater. In the near future, it will be possible to make a spectacularization of someone making coffee. Everything from the grinder, to the french press to the mug will be logging useable data. These new sources of data, and much of the data we are logging now, present problems for what we consider important and relevant. In the past we looked for specific things to track, now we are getting everything. We will need to learn how to decipher between useful and useless data.

Who is releasing this data? What is their agenda? Natalie Jeremijenko says, “And what I have observed is that the designers of these types of projects use extant data sets from the EPA, from the toxic relief inventory, federal databases, and do so without criticism, without asking how the data is generated, who collected it and under what conditions. That is, what does the data actually represent? ” Jeremijenko’s observation is confirmation that the work being created with these data sets are not created to reflect the information’s point of view. It is simply a value mapped to a variable in a system that then produces a visual output, placing the work in the realm of aesthetics rather than communication.

Though I disagree with spectacularizing information for spectacular’s sake, I believe that it is a stepping stone to informationizations. Informationizations are what I call information that has been visualized in a way that communicates the information and its implications so that people can relate to and engage with it. Tools such as Processing and Pachube have helped grow the practice of data visualization. However, it is still young and working out the kinks. Hopefully we will finding a balance between the development of new technology and practical, or impractical but provoking, applications. It will take time, but as the awe of new technology wears off and we continue to look critically at data visualization, we will begin to see informationizations instead of spectacularizations.

This material is meant to be a gas that refracts light and changes your perspective on the object on the other side. I am also curious how this might change the way we look into mirrors.

What interests me about Ubiquitous Computing is the subconscious and invisible realm it functions in. Though we have come a long way in developing and implementing Weiser’s vision, we are still in a somewhat awkward stage. We are learning new devices and the devices are learning us. “Push Overload” is a look at this learning process as well as commentary on the potential uselessness of the internet of things or spime without the vision of a designer to guide its application.