INFO-AESTHETICS:

Can information society be represented iconically?

Dr. Lev Manovich
Professor, Visual Arts Department: visarts.ucsd.edu
University of California San Diego: www.uscd.edu
Director, Software Studies Initiative: softwarestudies.com
California Institute of Information and Telecommnication www.calit2.net
web site: www.manovich.net
blog: www.databeautiful.net
email: manovich {at} ucsd {dot} edu
Lev@ myspace, facebook, flickr, twitter - search for me
AIM: levmano
Yahoo! Messenger: levmano12

 The unprecedented growth of information puts new pressures on contemporary

societies. We need to invent new ways to interact with information, new ways to
represent it, and new ways to make sense of it. How are artists, designers, and
architects are responding to these challenges? Rather than trying to defend
ourselves against "information glut," can we approach this situation creatively as
the opportunity to invent new forms appropriate for our information-rich world?
Since 2000, I have has investigated these questions in a project called InfoAesthetics. The concept of info-aesthetics allows us to relate together a wide
range of cultural phenomena, including some of the most interesting projects in
a variety of areas of contemporary culture: cinema, architecture, space design,
fashion, interface design, motion graphics, visual art, computer science, and, of
course, information visualization.

Symbolizing Information Age?

Can information society be represented iconically? The activities that define it
information processing, interaction between a human and a computer,
telecommunication, networking are all dynamic processes. These processes often
happen on a scale different from our bodies - they are too small, too big, or too fast.
How do we iconically represent global networks and computing itself? How can we
represent different work experiences in information society? Visually, they all look
the same - working on a computer - which does not result in iconic images and
forms.
How does the super-human scale of our information structures from dozens of
million lines of computer codes making Windows OS, to forty years which would
take one viewer to watch all video interviews stored on digital servers of the Shoah
Foundation, to the Web itself which cannot be even mapped as a whole be
translated to the scale of human perception and cognition?

Icons of information society: Miltos Manetas. Portrait with Powerbook. 1997.

Icons of information society: Miltos Manetas. NIkescape. 2005.

Icons of information society: Karim Rashid:

My real desire is to see people live in the modus of our
time, to participate in the contemporary world, and to
release themselves from nostalgia, antiquated traditions, old
rituals, kitsch and the meaningless.
The digital age, the information society, the global village
and the leisure culture all are symptoms of a changing
physical world where Soft defines our landscape.

Icons of information society: Karim Rashid

Karim Rashid / born 1960 / celebrating contemporary moment

Philippe Starck / born 1949 / references to the past / left: Bon Chair / right: Louis Ghost Chair

In looking for symbols of information society in contemporary culture, we can learn

from modernists. They created new visual and spatial forms which also acted
symbolically. In other words, they realized that instead of creating traditional standalone symbols (which would refer to iconic objects/experiences of Machine Age), they
can also use symbolically the form of an artwork/design: composition, color scheme,
textures, spatial and temporal arrangement, rhythm, movement, etc. But in order for
this to happen, the form had to be radicalized - liberated from being a support of
realistic representation.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the modern artists liberate the form,
subordinating representation to it. As formulated by French artist Maurice Denis in
1890, a picture...before being a battle, a horse, a nude woman, or some anecdote - is
essentially a plane surface covered with colors assembled in a certain order. With
form consciously understood as a kernel of an image responsible its visual, cognitive,
semiotic, communicative and emotional effects, it now can be deployed to act as a new
mechanism of symbolization.

Form as symbol. Example: diagonal composition. El Lissitzky (Russia). A Tale about Two Squares. 1919.

Form as symbol. Example: photomontage. Georg Grosz & John Heartfield Life
and Work in a Universal City 1919.

Form as a symbol. Example: city photomontages. Boris Belinsky (Russia). Metropolis. Photomontage. 1923.

Similar to modernists, today designers create new forms to symbolise contemporary

society

the common references of the business world are transfered to a society as a whole
"contemporary society / "contemporary lifestyle":
dynamic / flexible / adoptable /
innovation
mobility
network
hi-tech
global
multi-cultural (which often is used as a way to convey the concept "global")
horizontal (meaning: the opposite to "hierarchical"),
user-reconfigurable (meaning: rather than selling you a finished object/content/
message, we put forward a platform for the users to create, collaborate, and share),
"harmonious with/friendly towards/like environment/nature.")

Foreign Office Architects (London). Yokohama Ferry Terminal. Designed 1995.

Construction finished 2002.

Zaha Hadid (London). Abu Dhabi Performance Arts Center. UAE. 2007 ongoing.

Frank Gerhy. Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. Bilbao, Spain. Opened 1997.

Next two slides:

Top: Le Corbusier. Villa Savoye, Poissy-sur-Seine, France. 1929-30.
Bottom: Frank Gerhy. Walt Disney Concert Hall. Los Angeles. Original design: 1991.
Completed: 2003.

Bilbao effect: city branding. Foster + Partners (London) have released designs
for the biggest building ever built: Crystal Island in Moscow will be 450m high,
cover an area of almost half a million square metres and contain a total floor
area of 2.5 million square metres.

Bilbao effect 10 years: from one building by star architect to a whole museum
island.
January 2007: Architects Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Tadao Ando and Zaha
Hadid have designed cultural buildings for Saadiyat Island, which lies off the
shore of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Images: Louvre Abu Dhabi by architect Jean Nouvel. 2007 - ongoing

Hans Ibelings (Rotterdam, Netherlands). Super-modernism: Architecture in the Age

of Globalization. 1998.
supermodern aesthetics is characterized mainly by the absense of distinguiishing
marks, by neutrality.
today architecture is increasingly conceived as an empty medium.
a new spatial sensibility
boundless and undefined space which is not an emptiness but a safe contained,
a flexible shell.
The large, open and empty interior volumes, the use of translucency and
transparency, the employment of a variety of new materials and finishes which
create finely focused sensorial effects all these tactics have been by supermodern architects to craft unique spatial experiences where the experience one
can have by being inside a particular building cannot be duplicated anywhere else.

Example of super-modernism: Jean Novel (Paris). Foundation Cartier (Paris).

1994.

Canonical super-modern buildings used simple geometric volumes which offered

subtle sensorial effects inside and tried to disappear when seen from a distance.
Canonical brand architecture of 2000s appears to work differently its easily
identifiable and unique forms function as icons designed for media communication.
But at the same time, just as supermodern buildings, signature iconic buildings also
function as spatial destinations, i.e. they offer unique sensorial experiences inside.
The complex and dynamic forms of Frank Gerhys buildings such as Guggenheim
Bilbao, Los Angeles Disney Hall, or Strata Center at MIT is a perfect example of this
double function they look dramatic and unique when photographed, and they
simultaneosly promise a unique spatial experience which requires a physical visit.

Eco-symbolism: the return of symbols?

Jean Nouvel. Muse du quai_Branly. Paris. 2007. Image: Patrice Blanc's vertica garden on museum wall.

Branding and symbolism. If modernists artists aimed to symbolize the same set of references (speed, dynamism,
construction), today designers and architects are often hired to establish unique images for different brands, cities,
hotels, etc. And creation of unique forms has become one effective way of doing it.
Brandscaping.
Image: Rem Koolhaus (OMA, Rotterdam). Prada Epicenter. Los Angeles. 2004.

world-class architects who designed shops for globally recognized brands (as of 2005 - more since then):
Rem Koolhaas and OMA (Prada, New York, Beverly Hills, and San Francisco); Frank Gehry (Miyake Tribeca,
New York); Herzog & De Meuron (Prada, Tokyo); Tadao Ando (Armani Teatro, Milan); Renzo Piano (Herms
Ginza, Tokyo); Future Systems (Selfridges, Birmingham); Richard Gluckman (Helmut Lang, Paris, Milan, and
New York); and John Pawson (Calvin Klein, Paris).

Brandscaping and symbolism.

In some cases the space is designed to evoke the attributes of the brand (for instance, Niketown, Apple, Wholefoods).
In other cases, the goal is simply to create a unique spatial experience - a special, contemporary, memorable space.
Such space does directly refers to brand attributes - rather, it helps to establish the generic idea of this brand as
unique, sophisticated, contemporary, etc. (For instance, design of the stores of hi-end fashion labels). This difference
is sometimes (but not always) related to class: more unique abstract design is often seen in the case of high-level
brands (such as Prada Epicenters).
Left: Apple store, New York. (Evoking Apple through similar minimal but sensual aesthetics.