Abstract

Abstract How can we describe data when used as an art material? As the number of artists using data in their work increases, so too must our ability to describe the material in a way that is understood by both specialist and general audiences alike. Based on a review of existing vocabularies, glossaries and taxonomies of data, we propose our own concise taxonomy. To conclude, we propose the adoption of this concise taxonomy by artists, critics and curators, and suggest that ongoing refinement of the taxonomy takes place through crowdsourced knowledge sharing on the Web.

Highlights

  • Data is no longer just in the domain of engineers and scientists

  • Based on our initial findings, we propose a concise taxonomy for use in the description of data as an art material, designed for artists, curators, critics and associated general audiences

  • The concise taxonomy for describing data used as an art material has been developed collaboratively and applied to a sample of artworks as a method of testing its usability and relevance

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Data is no longer just in the domain of engineers and scientists. it never was; designers and cartographers have been visualizing data for around 3,000 years [9]. Data can inform decisions, help solve problems, and provide insight. In their raw format they are sets of individual values which can be manipulated, reconfigured, and transformed. Plies to data, which are not usually framed as an art material. In this paper we consider why artists use data as a material. Based on our initial findings, we propose a concise taxonomy for use in the description of data as an art material, designed for artists, curators, critics and associated general audiences. Through examining how a number of artists refer to data when describing their work, we note whether or not our taxonomy terms are synonymous with the language in the practitioners descriptions. We conclude that there are many taxonomies and vocabularies for cataloguing art, they are not adoptable tools in this context, and that our concise taxonomy is more practical

Motivation
ON DATA
Why Use Data as an Art Material?
Translating Data
New Media Art Databases
Visual Design Taxonomies
Data Glossaries
Summary
A CONCISE TAXONOMY FOR DESCRIBING DATA
Definitions
Additional Dataset Parameters
A Note on Licensing
A Note on Privacy and Anonymised Data
USING THE TAXONOMY
CONCLUSION
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