Data Bookification: Image, Place, and Event
Submission Type
Paper
Start Date/Time (EDT)
21-7-2024 9:15 AM
End Date/Time (EDT)
21-7-2024 10:15 AM
Location
Hypertexts & Fictions
Abstract
Books support many different modes of expression in addition to their textual and paratextual content via their size, mass, shape, design, and materials. Data is a material abstraction that — thanks to surveillance capitalism and other regimes of collection — accompanies many aspects of contemporary life, and the methods of data visualization, data sonification, and other strategies can help decision makers, citizens, and subjects explore and explain their data. In this paper, I propose the term “data bookification” to characterize a set of bookbound literary and artistic works that muster the expressive affordances inherent to their medium in order to convey the aesthetics, magnitude, and subjectivity of data that would otherwise have lain dormant. Works like Jeffrey Thompson’s Opossum.png (2021) render the magnitude of image data via codexical mass. Everest Pipkin’s Thoroughfare[] beat across the wilderness (2016) highlights the obfuscated spaces of network infrastructure by mining Google Streetview. And The Hidden Life of an Amazon User (2019) by Joanna Moll renders in sculptural form (a large stack of paper) the latent computational detritus of a visit to amazon.com. Image, place, event. By analyzing these and other representative works, I argue that — just as the printing press made possible a proliferation of new literary genres that could rely on consumers’ private reading experience — data bookification functions to re-individuate data that has been aggregated via the lenses of platform surveillance. At the intersection of computational literature and artist’s books, these experiments in tactical bookish aesthetics demonstrate the enduring richness of codexical technology.
Recommended Citation
Whalen, Zach, "Data Bookification: Image, Place, and Event" (2024). ELO (un)linked 2024. 16.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2024/hypertextsandfictions/schedule/16
Data Bookification: Image, Place, and Event
Hypertexts & Fictions
Books support many different modes of expression in addition to their textual and paratextual content via their size, mass, shape, design, and materials. Data is a material abstraction that — thanks to surveillance capitalism and other regimes of collection — accompanies many aspects of contemporary life, and the methods of data visualization, data sonification, and other strategies can help decision makers, citizens, and subjects explore and explain their data. In this paper, I propose the term “data bookification” to characterize a set of bookbound literary and artistic works that muster the expressive affordances inherent to their medium in order to convey the aesthetics, magnitude, and subjectivity of data that would otherwise have lain dormant. Works like Jeffrey Thompson’s Opossum.png (2021) render the magnitude of image data via codexical mass. Everest Pipkin’s Thoroughfare[] beat across the wilderness (2016) highlights the obfuscated spaces of network infrastructure by mining Google Streetview. And The Hidden Life of an Amazon User (2019) by Joanna Moll renders in sculptural form (a large stack of paper) the latent computational detritus of a visit to amazon.com. Image, place, event. By analyzing these and other representative works, I argue that — just as the printing press made possible a proliferation of new literary genres that could rely on consumers’ private reading experience — data bookification functions to re-individuate data that has been aggregated via the lenses of platform surveillance. At the intersection of computational literature and artist’s books, these experiments in tactical bookish aesthetics demonstrate the enduring richness of codexical technology.
Bio
Zach Whalen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and Digital Studies at the University of Mary Washington. His research has involved many facets digital media and culture, including video games, electronic literature, and computational creativity. His current book project is analyzing the history and meaning of computer-generated literary and artistic books.