/Tag_Topology

Data Visualisation | Internet | Processing

This project consists of a Processing sketch that reads a .txt document containing all the keywords rhizome.org tagged their blogposts with over a total of 6 months in 2010. The sketch counts the number of times an individual tag appears - the more appearances a given tag makes, the higher it appears on the visualisation. The result is a kind of retro-aesthetic grid, reminiscent of early computer graphics.

The point of the piece is to begin to examine the question "What is New Media Art?" Of course media can be any method we use to communicate a message or concept, so understanding it by these terms leaves us with a vague and problematic definition. It is not an art movement – the term has not arisen from an organised group of artists operating under common ideologies or an agreed manifesto. Instead, New Media Art becomes a catch-all term for artists in the last few decades of the 20th century and up until the present who directly engage with technology, or comment on the use of technology as culture, in their art. Even by this definition, as vague as it is, one can find inconsistencies and irrelevancies.

Using the collated tags of six months of Rhizome's posts as a datasource, we can begin to understand how we can define the most important aspects of New Media Art. Rhizome updates their blog numerous times a day with various artworks that generally deal with the convergence of art, technology and multimedia, despite the great diversity of the blogged artworks. Each post is tagged with keywords relevant to the post’s content. In gathering this data over a longer period (in this case one month) we can begin to see how patterns develop with some keywords appearing more frequently than others, and build up an image of the important trends and points of discussion in New Media Art actually are. This media-map is testament to the many associations New Media Art has – with some tags being perhaps surprisingly popular.