Table Of ContentSpringer Series on Cultural Computing
Jonathan P. Bowen
Suzanne Keene
Kia Ng Editors
Electronic
Visualisation
in Arts and Culture
Electronic Visualisation in Arts and Culture
Springer Series on Cultural Computing
Editor-in-chief
Ernest Edmonds University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Editorial board
Frieder Nake University of Bremen, Germany
Nick Bryan-Kinns Queen Mary, University of London, UK
Linda Candy University of Technology Sydney, Australia
David England Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Andrew Hugill De Montfort University, UK
Shigeki Amitani Adobe Systems Inc. Tokyo, Japan
Doug Riecken Columbia University, NY, USA
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/10481
Jonathan P. Bowen (cid:129) Suzanne Keene (cid:129) Kia Ng
Editors
Electronic Visualisation
in Arts and Culture
Editors
Jonathan P. Bowen Suzanne Keene
Department of Informatics Department of Archaeology
London South Bank University University College London
London , UK London , UK
Kia Ng
Interdisciplinary Centre for Scientifi c
Research in Music (ICSRiM)
School of Computing & School of Music
University of Leeds
Leeds , UK
Corresponding e-mail for all editors: [email protected]
ISSN 2195-9056 ISSN 2195-9064 (electronic)
ISBN 978-1-4471-5405-1 ISBN 978-1-4471-5406-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4471-5406-8
Springer London Heidelberg New York Dordrecht
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013947737
© Springer-Verlag London 2013
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Foreword
The EVA conferences span the 20 years from the early 1990s until now. They began
as part of the EU-funded VASARI collaborative research project, which included
the National Gallery, London, and its peers in Munich and Paris as well as universities
and industrial companies across Europe. EVA stands for E lectronic Visualisation
and the Arts : ‘Electronic Visualisation’ because the aim of the VASARI project was
to develop a digital camera with suffi cient resolution to do justice to the two
thousand or so paintings in the National Gallery’s collection, as the leader of the
VASARI project.
James Hemsley led the project’s Dissemination Work Package and the progress
and results were disseminated by organising the fi rst EVA conference to ‘exchange
experiences, plans and dreams’ with participants in VASARI and other projects. For
the fi rst few years, the conferences were held in London but subsequently in many
other cities around the world (see Chap. 1 ). Initially funded by the EU, the meetings
proved so popular that they continued afterwards on a self-supporting basis. Since
2008, the Computer Arts Society, a Specialist Group of the British Computer
Society (BCS – the Chartered Institute for IT), has been hosting the EVA London
conferences at the BCS London headquarters in Covent Garden.
Historically, EVA spans momentous developments in technology and culture. The
World Wide Web has revolutionised computing and information technology, the digi-
tal camera has revolutionised the way we image ourselves and the world around us,
social networks have revolutionised how we relate to each other, the mobile phone
has revolutionised how we talk to each other and search technologies are revolution-
ising our relationship to knowledge and its creation and preservation. Even those of
us who lived through and took part in some of these developments wonder how on
earth we managed in the bygone days without these tools. But the next generation of
professionals and leaders will have grown up with them since early childhood.
Generation Xbox , Facebook and Kinect will be completely adapted to these environ-
ments as fi sh are to water. However , these developments have not escaped criticism;
while these technologies have matured, the economies that spawned them have sunk
into recession or at best undergone slow growth. Cause and effect – very doubtful!
While the nineteenth-century technologies – railways, engines, sewers, telegraphy,
v
vi Foreword
aircraft, etc. – had truly major economic and life-changing effects, there is an argu-
ment that these late twentieth-century developments have had marginal, incremental
effects on the economy rather than being fundamental game changers. But if the
quantifi able economic benefi ts are rather less than the fanfares suggest, it may be that
more people are doing more things which are not economically measurable or ‘pro-
ductive’, for example talking to each other, helping each other and having fun, enjoy-
ing immersion in the new open culture which these new technologies have seeded
and exploring qualitative, human possibilities. And, being of its time, eclectic in its
coverage, this is precisely what the EVA conferences have tried to achieve, with
major success, as you will discover from the following chapters.
Although EVA is of modern times, we now know that concerns with images,
movement and interactions, in the sense of performances, were present from the
very beginnings of H omo sapiens . That combination of language, tool making,
empathy, socialisation, playfulness and inventiveness which distinguishes our
species made its mark early. Recent analyses of cave paintings have suggested that
the makers of these were using animation techniques at least 30,000 years ago.
Flickering light and subtle use of line and 3D features of the cave wall could give a
sense of movement. It is tempting to speculate that these early efforts at animations,
if such they are, are a manifestation of the brain’s capability for prediction – to
consider what might happen next and to act accordingly – so vital to our evolution
and survival (so far).
But as we edge nervously into the twenty-fi rst century, our scientifi c understanding
of the problems of climate, water, food and disease does raise the spectre that our
governance systems are not up to acting on the sombre predictions from the
knowledge base. What then of the playful inventiveness from the interdisciplinary
arts and technologies described by EVA contributors? The message that I take from
these chapters is one of hope; although the outputs from these are not yet quantifi able
in economic metrics, they are hugely important in helping create new modes of
social interaction that will encourage people in joint efforts to overcome the poverty
of the dispiriting hierarchies of power which do seem to be failing us in the face of
gloomy predictions. My optimism is that the kinds of innovations and developments
described in the EVA conferences are steps towards new ways of articulating and
sharing knowledge, which in turn will feed into more open and responsive forms of
governance.
The EVA London conferences from 2009 to 2012 have produced around 400–
500 contributions, papers, demonstrations and workshops. To distil from this an
essence which also projects a sense of what the overall programme has been about
and might do has been a challenge to which, as you will see, the editors have risen
with great insight and skill.
For me, these EVA chapters are a real contribution to twenty-fi rst-century arts
and culture, and Springer is to be congratulated for publishing them.
London, 2013 George Mallen
Pref ace
To accomplish great things we must fi rst dream, then visualize, then plan… believe… act!
– Alfred A. Montapert
In this book, we present selected revised and extended papers from the EVA
London Conference on Electronic Visualisation and the Arts held between 2009
and 2012. These conferences provide an interdisciplinary forum for people with
a wide range of backgrounds, ranging from visual artists to computer scientists.
The initial selection of chapters was largely by the audience during ‘best
presentation’ competitions at these conferences, with some additions by the
editors for a more rounded overall selection. Each chapter was then peer-reviewed
by experts.
George Mallen has provided a summing up at recent EVA London conferences
and provides a thoughtful foreword for this book. James Hemsley is the progenitor
of the EVA conferences, which began in London, but are now held annually
in a number of other venues around the world, including Berlin, Florence and
Moscow. In Chap. 1 , he provides a history of EVA by way of background to
this book.
T he rest of the book is divided into themed parts. Each has been shepherded by
an editor during the reviewing and revision process and includes a short introduction
summarising the theme and the rest of the chapters in that part, together with some
suggested reading where appropriate.
The annual EVA London conferences are held on behalf of the Computer
Arts Society, a British Computer Society (BCS) Specialist Group of the Chartered
Institute for IT. We gratefully acknowledge the assistance and support of both
organisations. The editors thank the EVA London organising and programme
committees for the years 2009–2012, especially the organising chairs and proceedings
editors (for the proceedings for these conferences, see http://www.eva-london.org).
vii
viii Preface
James Hemsley and George Mallen have been stalwarts of the EVA London
Conference series for many years. Finally, thank you to all the participants at EVA
London conferences for making them such exciting and successful events.
London, 2013 Jonathan P. Bowen
Suzanne Keene
Kia Ng
Contents
1 The EVA London Conference 1990–2012:
Personal Refl ections ................................................................................ 1
James Hemsley
Part I Imaging and Culture
Suzanne Keene
2 From Descriptions to Duplicates to Data .............................................. 9
Michael Lesk
3 Quantifying Culture: Four Types of Value in Visualisation ............... 25
Chris Alen Sula
4 Embodied Airborne Imagery: Low-Altitude Cinematic
Urban Topography .................................................................................. 39
Amir Soltani
5 Back to Paper? An Alternative Approach to Conserving
Digital Images into the Twenty-Third Century .................................... 57
Graham Diprose and Mike Seaborne
Part II New Art Practice
Jonathan P. Bowen
6 Light Years: Jurassic Coast: An Immersive
3D Landscape Project ............................................................................. 75
Jeremy Gardiner and Anthony Head
7 Photography as a Tool of Alienation: A ura ........................................... 91
Murat Germen
8 Fugue and Variations on Some Themes in Art and Science ............... 105
Gordana Novakovic
ix
