Taiwan International Light Festival 2023｜Scenery of Dataflow

Data are constantly flowing around us. By capturing signals, we can weave data into sceneries. In the digital era, massive data are analyzed. Then, they are computed and used to create an order from certain perspectives to become readable information. Just like what the protagonist in Matrix sees. Although we can never be the savior, artists can now use algorithms to tease out data and propose their viewpoints. Converting information into fuels that drive their works and visualizing data into sceneries of light and sound.

In the era of the electronic community today, corporations have been gathering massive information on the digital footprints of user experience to formulate marketing strategies or design custom interfaces. Such gold-mining approaches enabled by big data have become ubiquitous nowadays. Nevertheless, in the field of artistic creation, viewing data analyses and algorithmic results as artistic works already emerged in the 90s ensuing the invention of the Internet.

Users only needed to type in their addresses, and the work would be able to endlessly enlarge aerial images taken from space. And show seamless images from space to their houses. In addition, this work “inspired” the later invention of Google Earth. However, the differences between Terravision and modern satellite GPS can be found in their dissimilar purposes after data are induced into information by the artists.

The objective of aesthetic computing is to apply theories/practices of tech art/visual design to the field of computer science/ computing. The aesthetic scope in art is much wider than that in mathematics and computing. In the latter of which aesthetics is usually equivalent to optimality criteria. Therefore, these new areas encourage the expansion of the categories of aesthetic appreciation based on art in the application and further include fundamental elements of computing.