A New Book by LEA Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics published on the new platform Contemporary Art and Cultures. Thanks to OCR, The MIT Press, andMIT Media Lab. The volume –here– is edited by Lanfranco Aceti, Paul Thomas, and Edward Colless.

The Aesthetic Paradoxes of Visualizing the Networked Image: 

Dr. Michael N. Goddard & Grace Kingston

Abstract

This article considers the paradoxes of visualizing the networked image in the contexts of data mining and social media networks. In particular, it presents Grace Kingston’s project Here You Are as critically engaged with and participating in these data mining practices, along with the common social networking practices of check-ins and selfies, in order to emphasize social network users as bodies of data. This is situated within a larger context of global network surveillance and data extraction, which aim to visualize these highly visible, everyday activities as they are implicated in invisible circuits of data mining and control that extend well beyond the users’ self-perceptions and agency. As such, the project and the article aim to illuminate the noisy penumbra of the data clouds surrounding these practices in order to reveal this opaque circulation conducted in and through social networks. We present this paper as a dialogue, as this is intrinsic to its composition. Read the full article here

Keywords

Social media, data mining, the stack, cloud, check-ins, selfies

Cloud and Molecular Aesthetics is an open access book by Leonardo Electronic Almanac edited by Lanfranco Aceti, Paul Thomas, and Edward Colless. It is published by MIT Press with the support of Operational and Curatorial Research (OCR) and Goldsmiths, University of London. (2017)