#anti-sublime

[katielcsc]

Week 9 Post 2 - “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”

The first stanza of “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” by William Wordsworth says, “There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, / To me did seem / Apparelled in celestial light, / The glory and the freshness of a dream. / It is not now as it hath been of yore; – / Turn wheresoe’er I may, / By night or day, / The things which I have seen I now can see no more” (348). Then the final lines of the poem say, “To me the meanest flower the blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears” (352).

This poem and these passages feel as if they are the anti-sublime. In the first stanza, the speaker sounds woeful. Nature used to provoke sublime feelings in him when he was a child. It was provoking and beautiful when he was young. Now, however, he cannot see the beauty anymore. The reader doesn’t know if he’s trapped inside and literally cannot go see the beauty or if the beauty is now lost no him. I believe that he sees the nature, but he doesn’t see its beauty. He is growing older, his childhood is fleeting, and the world doesn’t seem as wonderful as it once did. The sublime has faded, and now he is left with sadness. Throughout the poem he recalls these memories of his childhood. Then by the ninth stanza, he realizes the power of his memories. Through them he can access his childhood again, he can see the beauty again, he can experience the sublime again. Which then provokes this anti-sublime idea brought out in the final lines of the poem. His mind and his thoughts are powerful. They can take him back into the places he thought he had lost. He can then experience the sublime through these thoughts. This feels anti-sublime because the sublime is supposed to be this overwhelming feeling where your brain shuts off, you enter a trance, and you cannot think. Wordsworth is hypothesizing that his memories and thoughts could be what takes him into the sublime, and his thoughts power the sublime. Coleridge hinted to the mind being capable of creating the sublime when he imagined seeing Mont Blanc, but here Wordsworth is proclaiming that his thoughts are stronger than this sublime. His “thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.” He’s saying that his thoughts are stronger than the tear provoking and emotional experience of the sublime.

Wordsworth, William. “Ode: Intimations of Immortality.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 10th ed., D, W. W. Norton & Company, 2018, pp. 347–352.

[laurenkreid]

“It's a land that God, if he exists has - has created in anger. It's the only land where - where creation is unfinished yet. Taking a close look at - at what's around us there - there is some sort of a harmony. It is the harmony of... overwhelming and collective murder. And we in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle - Uh, we in comparison to that enormous articulation - we only sound and look like badly pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban... novel... a cheap novel.”

[floriafu-blog]

Aesthetics of Information Visualization&The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art Response

Instead of making data visualization in a purpose of providing scientific information context(as an area of investigation and experimentation), the aesthetics of information visualization beyond the scientific aspect should be considered as well, in terms of the judgment that used to determine whether the work is valuable, according to the senses( the body).

Unlike the form that applied in the area if science and engineering to just visualize and understand the worth of an information, the new form of focusing on the sense emphasis  a quite different features of information visualization.  Many artists and designers unsatisfied with making data to easy understanding or simple, but to visualize data in a “pretty” way, which people named this kind of project as “anti-sublime”. For example, The Uncanny, another way of achieving the aesthetic of “anti-sublime”.

Even though different conceptual artists view the aim of information visualization in a quite diverse ways, “There is (at least) an aesthetics of beauty, of the anti-sublime, of the sublime, of the uncanny and of administration”(Sack, P8,2011). Based on computer technology, various forms of data visualization can be created. With media and software(Meta-Media) data is able to be mapped into another domain; for instance, 2D space to 3D, sound into 2D image, etc. In computer culture, mapping data into another or another media is common; however, computer is not capable to distinguish the beauty of those visualizations, where artists are trying to make some changes.

In my point of view, Anti-sublime and sublime is not opposite or to be consider two opposite purposes. Through those sublime data visualization, there is a beauty inside them can be found, but it is not obvious to see; on the other hand, Anti-sublime project is capable to give viewers a n understanding of the data while with more complex and sensible ways. In fact, people can have a better understanding when data become more sensible and interesting. Where, simple and easy data visualization is much more suitable for scientific field rather than the public.

Reference:

Manovich, Lev. "The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art." (2002). Manovich. Web. Stack, Warren. "Aesthetics of Information Visualization." (2011).Web.

[peoplemachine-blog]

Lee Manovich: The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art

[Please take this as a personal reflection and opinion on the mentioned article as opposed to a review or summary of its points]

Although I respect the value of thought and ideas, I am not at all afraid to admit that I did not thoroughly enjoy reading The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art.  Lev could definitely benefit from a few editor friends (or many).

However, I do submit to some of the ideas Manovich introduces.  On the first read, I found it difficult to get through the article, and found it difficult to grasp the concept of meta-media.  I had never given much thought to the mapping of data as traversal through different dimensions - I had always just accepted that the more creative forms of data visualization were just a representation of statistics through different media.

Manovich’s next point made an ignorant fool out of me - or perhaps it was a bi-product of growing up in a technological age.  As a photographer who started out with film, I had always drawn parallels with analogue and digital photography, cinema, and editing - I had never perceived Adobe Photoshop as a simulator of my high school dark room, or Final Cut Pro 7 as a substitute for a splicing board.  But how could I not?  These very softwares were originally written to replicate the effects of their analogue predecessors.

On Anti-Sublime: Computation is also mentioned as a tool for artists and designers, but also as art itself - something that I have learned to appreciate more since venturing into Digital Media@York.  I have always understood the art and beauty of science: in physics, fractals; in chemistry, atomic bonding.  We have hit a period in which technology has become an integral part of our lives, and it is seen mostly as utilitarian.  But what has begun to come out (especially as more generations become accustomed to, or grow up with modern-day technologies) of this culture is a sort of repurposing of technological growth - a new type of design, in which form emerges from function.

This also brings up an important point, as data has become something that is much more readily accessible (sometimes even unwantedly so) than the past, such that the previous belief of ‘truthfulness’ or ‘scientific value’ behind a set of statistics is compromised.  Anyone can manipulate or distort a situation using true ‘statistics’, including only what they see is important to a situation or to evidence certain motivations.

I find it interesting that Manovich mentioned a sort of “data-epistemology”, since we are dealing with art and science.  I recall a philosophy and religion course in which the instructor had asked students to differentiate between science and art.  What we discussed was that both had originated from philosophy - ideas of how things have come to be and how they work, and how we experience the world and ourselves.  It’s even more interesting for me now to discover that so much time has passed before most have realized such an old concept through technology, and that it’s all just begun.