Computer-Assisted Visualisation, between Reality and Fiction – Derrick de Kerckhove (Canada)

Computer-Assisted Visualization, between Reality and Fiction

Derrick of Kerckhove

Canada

There was a moment when the images were fixed, however, when they "went to the cinema" they moved, they remained spectacular, that is, distant and separated from the viewer; until they were digitized, then they became cognitively different from analog images, film, or video material. Images have always been the visualized equivalents of nouns, they become verbs, they act in a new kind of mutual space between mental and physical.

The much greater flexibility of images has weakened the distinction/separation between objective and subjective experiences of any kind of evidence. The triad of the sign has been amputated from the referent, that is, from the third element that actually validates the credibility of the other two (signifier and signified), which generates all kinds of opportunities, among other consequences, to create false news. and false images; even when the proposition is true, it also cannot be truly objective as in the case of satellite photography of electric lighting around the world. Such images are objective and yet also fictions, since they depend on the correlation of at least eight hours of satellite recording and are never really present simultaneously.
Ordinary, time-based photography of accelerated events, such as plant growth or the cinematic slow motion of sports events, has accustomed us not to doubt reality. A different but related way of representing events globally through accurate statistical analysis and projections allows us to rely on sites like the Poodwaddle World Clock for frequency ratios of various recurring rhythms, such as births and deaths or building rates. of houses or manufactures of automobiles, armaments and bottles of beer; Artists such as Maurice Benayoun or Christophe Bruno have taken advantage of this new way of interpreting verifiable data to support their representations of social and natural events to create striking interactive pieces. These and many other examples allow us to explore new visualization patterns that seem to underline the truth of representation and distance us from its actuality.