Month: February 2022 Page 1 of 2

Peer critique guidelines

On February 22, 2022

Due 3/23

Make a post on the student blog titled “[Your Name] Midterm”. Then, scan this video for the place in the video when your presentation started, and add that time stamp to your post. A recording of Professor Karriem’s in-class explanation of this assignment can be found at the beginning of this video.

After you’ve made your post, write a one to two paragraph response offering critical feedback, ideas and resources to three of your peers. This can be conceptual, aesthetic, technical or comparative.

Alistair’s assignments: Ameya, Cathy, Cynthia
Ameya’s assignments: Alistair, Cathy, Cynthia
Cathy’s assignments: Alistair, Ameya, Cynthia
Cynthia’s assignments: Alistair, Ameya, Cathy
Isabella’s assignments: Molly, Noelle, Pierre
Molly’s assignments: Isabella, Noelle, Pierre
Noelle’s assignments: Isabella, Molly, Pierre
Pierre’s assignments: Isabella, Molly, Noelle
Stephane’s assignments: Molly, Isabella, Cynthia
Ooha’s assignments: Cathy, Ameya, Alistair
Yoo Bin’s assignments: Zoe, Pierre, Noelle
Zoe’s assignments: Yoo Bin, Molly, Isabella

In preparation for Wednesday’s group critique, you could consider the following ways to talk about your work, and use these as loose guidelines for responding to the work of your peers.

Art criticism is about responding to, interpreting, and making critical judgements about works of art as a way to help make sense of the work, and also to help the maker of the work understand how their work is being received and how it might be reworked or expanded upon to more clearly communicate an intended message.

Keep in mind that critical feedback is supposed to be helpful! The goal is to get you to talk about your work, to understand how others are interpreting it, and to ask questions of your peers so that you can make informed choices about how to develop your work. As you are responding to your peers work, extend beyond using “I like x,” to describing why you like certain aspects, what your interpretation of them is, what message it is that they convey to you.

When critiquing each others work you could use the following lines of engagement as guidelines:

Description: formal analysis, answers the question of “what do you see? hear?,” describes the aesthetic elements of the work (ie textures, colors, relationship between forms)
Analysis: what do the formal features suggest? why did the artist use them? what ideas do they convey? what seems important in the work? how do the formal elements convey a message, mood, or idea? what is your reaction to certain elements? or the work as a whole?
Interpretation: why did the artist create this work and what is its “meaning”? can you describe what the work is “about” without the artist’s explanation? does your interpretation differ from what the artist described? why?
Judgement: What criteria do you use to judge the work? what is your judgement as to its quality? what aspects are working well? which can be improved? how might they be improved? if it is your work, what would you do differently?

“Art” created by Artificial Intelligence

By Pierre Nanquette

On February 9, 2022

In Student Blog

The technology of artificial Intelligence (AI) has brought many changes to human society both in functionality and intellectually. The idea that a “mind” could be created by a series of Algorithms fascinated people, as this meant an even more advanced integration of the everyday life with technology. It is with no surprise that, AI has found its way into the field of Art as well. There are several applications of AI in Art. For instance, this technology can be applied in the purpose of art restoration with models that attempts to reconstruct the original damaged art piece; It can also be applied for art forgeries detection. In short, AI is very useful in the art field in in a variety of ways and another application that people found for AI was to let it create its own Art.

[above image shows the 1st AI that draws a painting without the assistance or guidance of a human in the loop]

The first significant AI artwork that was created was done by the AARON program in the 1970s created by Harold Cohen. This program could create digital art pieces autonomously inspired from the hard-coded “styles” that is inputted by the author. Since then, similar programs have emerged throughout the years all attempting to let their algorithms produce art pieces. Each one of them uses different techniques to generate these arts. Some utilizes machine learning. Where the AI is trained with human drawing, then is asked to produce an image inspired from its vast “memory”.

The above art piece is created by Obvious: A French company composed of 3 college students, used machine learning models, and train their algorithm with 15,000 portraits originally painted between the 14^th and the 20^th century. The resulting ai-generated portrait is a slightly disfigured portrait of a man. This painting was sold in auction for about 400k USD compared to its initial estimated price of 10k USD in 2018. While this artwork is very much like current trends in modern art, mainly abstract art. Its value is vastly attributed to the fact that it was not made by a human.

AI-generated art falls short on the aspect of critical making. Whatever the AI produces has limited amount of context. As it is limited at the data it was used to train with. There is no true motive, nor message that the AI is trying to express. At least, not one that the artist did not “hard-coded” into it. There is no expression through the media. Hence, it does not satisfy the conditions for it to be an art of critical making. If there is any value, it would be its lack of intent. By having no intent behind the artwork, the work becomes whatever the audience sees in it. Instead of conveying a message, it raises more the questioning of what makes art an art. In contrast, if we were to look at human made abstract art pieces such as the one above, the interpretation would have been difference simply because the artist has a motive, a reason for designing his/her work in the way the way it is.

Street Art Critiquing Digital Society/Reliance

By Zoe Superville

On February 9, 2022

In Student Blog

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation.

Banksy is an English artist whose real name and identity is unknown. Their art is often, if not always, a critique on current social and political issues.

Banksy’s art is, in my belief, a great example of critical making. They use art in the form of graffiti, sculptures, and videos to critique social issues such as consumerism and political issues like surveillance, government corruption, and more. According to Ratto and Hoekema, “critical making is an elision of two typically disconnected modes of engagement in the world—‘critical thinking,’ often considered as abstract, explicit, linguistically based, internal and cognitively individualistic; and ‘making,’ typically understood as material, tacit, embodied, external and community-oriented.” Banksy’s art shows many examples of critical thinking combined with making. For example, the Dismaland exhibit shows many elements of critical thinking. Bansky exampains “[Dismaland is] a theme park whose big theme is – theme parks should have bigger themes.” It is a critique on our society’s consumerism and carelessness about important issues. For that reason, the park has a depressing tone to show that there is nothing fun about the major issues in the world like immigration, economic hardships, and suffering.

Another one of Banksy’s popular pieces is their graffiti of surveillance cameras always watching us (us being civilians). Not only does this speak to government corruption, but it also critiques the widespread use of surveillance. This type of critique is even more important now with the introduction of facial recognition in policing. This is a huge problem in our digital culture today, as our reliance and use of technology is far ahead of our regulations on them.

The way Banksy’s art combines with digital distribution is something that is interesting to me in thinking about our digital age and how it relates to critical making. Because Banksy is a street artist, most people find out about their art from their instagram or online news sources. It is interesting how even though Banksy’s art is physical, the popularization of the art is extremely dependent on digital culture and people’s dependence on social media and the internet for news and content.

I often think about how these exhibits like Dismaland will one day become digital using forms of AR/VR to conform to our new digital age. I think this would be interesting because the idea of Banky’s art being shown using new digital forms seems contradictory to their critical works. Thus, I think the dependence on digital culture itself is something to be critiqued and can be done without the use of digital art.

Artificial Dreaming

By Cynthia France

On February 8, 2022

In Student Blog

For one week in fall 2018, passersby of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles would’ve witnessed something quite peculiar—the blending of years upon years of media from the LA Philharmonic’s digital archives projected upon every surface of the concert hall. To the untrained eye, it would’ve looked like an odd compilation of music footage, but to its creator, both human and machine, it is much more. It is a dream, the creation of something new from old. It is living, changing, hallucinating.

Media artist Refik Anadol uses machine learning and intelligence to create art. By feeding a computer algorithm exorbitant amounts of data, Anadol can produce stunning visualizations. The machine transforms media–combining, morphing, and manipulating it to produce unique interpretations of the data it was given. In a way, the machine is dreaming. Similar to how humans dream by altering past memories, Anadol’s algorithm learns from its “memories”—the data it’s fed—and alters them in a similar fashion.

Machine learning, the use of algorithms and models to recognize patterns in data, is used to develop computer systems that can learn and adapt to new situations without explicit instruction from humans. Said algorithms are fed “training data,” countless examples of certain situations. By analyzing said data for relationships, similarities and differences, the machine draws connections between objects and concepts and attempts to apply its previous knowledge to new situations. Similar to a child growing and learning from observations, the machine learns from data and grows by analyzing new “experiences.”

The Walt Disney Concert Hall projection was a part of Anadol’s WDCH Dreams project, a collaboration with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in celebration of their centennial season. The visualization brings over 45 terabytes of data: 40,000 hours of audio from over 16,000 performances, the “memories” of LA Phil, to life. Combined with the fact that the WDCH is LA Phil’s home base, it is as if the building itself has come to life, sharing its memories and dreams of the symphony’s evolution throughout the years.

Anadol’s take on art—human creations from a non-human being—embodies critical making in every way. The use of “new” media: artificial intelligence, machine learning, and to a lesser degree the data “memories” to create unique and ever-changing art. Anadol’s art is constantly pushing the limits of media & technology, exploring and experimenting ways in which he can manipulate various real-world information to produce creative visualizations of data. Oftentimes, his work represents the concept of “the medium is the message.” With the WDCH project, the input, output, and message are all the same: the LA Philharmonic.

And yet, his products are not entirely composed of new media. Anadol oftentimes uses old media: arts, architecture, etc as an interface. But the effect goes both ways. Instead of viewing it as old media creating new media, his art can be thought of as a mutual supporting of two equally important aspects of media. While the old is an interface, or creates the new, the new is also augmenting the old. A building is no longer just a building, but an entirely unique piece of artwork itself.

The Metaverse as Critical Commentary on Real Life

By Olivia Garrick

On February 7, 2022

In Student Blog

Critical making can perhaps be thought of as a physically interactive bridge between people and digital technologies for the purpose of critique. Challenges to the tangible components of technological interactions are commonplace and expected in many digital developments. Chip’s get smaller and functionality comes in ever more compact packages. The trick is to be powerful but unseen. This invisibility is a feature for enhancing interaction with the physical world. It tries to emulate a sixth sense–pulling from massive databases of information instantly, embodying a friend’s face and voice, taking instant snapshots in time to keep forever. Tech’s social identity is that of a companion. Artist’s critical making practices can easily use tangible components to provide constructive feedback on this identity and it’s transactions between reality and tech.

The concept of virtual realities, and more specifically speculation and romanticization of the metaverse, is a subversion of the typical philosophy around tech. In this case, the tech is supercharged but also extremely visible. Rather than trying to be a subtle enhancement tool of physical experience, it requires agreement to suspend disbelief and be transported. It completely cloaks the senses in a virtual space. This Meta *cough* Facebook *cough* ad showcasing a social event between different human and non-human avatars in outer space is a good example because the virtual aspects greatly outnumber the visual aspects tied to physical location and experience. The physical aspects were almost there as a grounding point since it’s easy to get lost in the fantastical nature of the generated space.

If critical making is commentary then the metaverse and it’s message of being “bigger, better, more” does represent a marketable critique of the life of the average consumer. While there is a lack of physical and tangible aspects of “making” in its production, the concept of making should evolve with the tools available. It is critical making. The basic statement is that it will connect across wider barriers in a more immersive and creative way. It is about potential. If this type of interactivity can be both a poison and an antidote, designers of the metaverse do not acknowledge the poison aspects. Their critique is one that life can only be made better when it is covered up and overlaid by interactivities and functionalities. In terms of the individual user’s relationship to the metaverse, the social aspects and personalization presented in the ad contribute to a false sense of technological neutrality. It is marketed as a reflection of the users and therefore no more moral than their own impulses and desires. It represents freedom and choice while trying to absolve itself of responsibility similar to the physical world.

As of now, it is presented as simply speculative design. It gets viewers to think about their current realities and how those could change through creative and embodied solutions. However, if there is such a thing as “good and bad” critical making then it definitely is worth bringing up in this case. There is a lack of awareness of the values of tangibility and physical experience in the current romanticization of the metaverse. It is empowering to individuals in terms of their connection to others and to vast sources of information, but it can only teach through external means and arguably stunts self reflection. There are already numerous incidents of people exploiting others in test demos of multiplayer online virtual spaces. When something is enveloping an experience like this, it’s important that it be responsible. In this way, while the metaverse is a critically made digital statement of our current world and methods of interaction, it is a chaotic and imbalanced one. This should be seen as an invitation to appreciate the more sensitive and deliberate side of critical making.

Midterm Assignment

By Rebecca Uliasz

On February 7, 2022

In Assignments

For your midterm assignment, you will work towards developing a project proposal that will become your guiding plan towards realizing your final project at the end of the semester. Think of this proposal as prescriptive, in the sense that you will be asked to identify themes, ideas, materials, and forms you would like to explore, but also experimental, in the sense that your project may change as you develop it further, and workshop it through in-class and one-on-one critiques. It is a chance to “prototype” your final project.

It is divided into multiple checkpoints.

Due 2/14: Proposal and Project Sketch

A one to two-page (double-spaced, 12-point font, PDF) description of what it is you’re trying to achieve, including:

- What you plan to make and why
- Audience: What critical intervention you’re hoping the project will make, or what conversations it contributes to
- Concepts & Materials: ideas and techniques you hope to explore during the making process
- Three example media artworks that you’re drawing inspiration from, and why they speak to you. Draw from the class resource page, or anywhere else. Here is a list of artists included in Form and Code (Reas and McWilliams).
- A preliminary map, flow or sketch, using some simple graphic icons or shapes: is the project sequential, non-linear or branching? Is it experiential? What kinds of interactions are you imagining? What is the project’s relationship to time? (use any format, for example, Sketchup, Google Drawings, hand sketching)

Instead of attempting to make the sketch look like a finished product, it is preferable to use that effort to try more layout variations and concepts: even ones that may be radically different from where you started. Quantity over quality. The point of the exercise is to be able generate them quickly and select the ones that work best for your purpose or aesthetic sensibility.

Throughout the process, be mindful of the reasons the project is compelling to you. Struggles in planning often translate to struggles in implementation, so do what you can to think the ideas through to their conceptual and technical conclusions. This isn’t to say implementation struggles are a negative. Many times an idea can only go so far in planning and needs real iteration cycles to come to its full expression. The idea is to maintain a sense of the kinds of results would be interesting and compelling for you.

Due 2/21 2/23: Design Iteration and group critiques

Take your midterm proposal and start thinking about the real images, text, fonts, colors, sounds you are going to work with in Max/MSP. Work with actual content from your project archive: its important to move beyond abstract techniques and “get to the heart of the matter” at an early stage. However, you’ll have a brief deliverable that is consistent for everyone. This will be a prototype Max patch that you will show in class. It does not need to be functional or fully developed but should include some visual and/or sound elements, and you should be able to talk about how you hope to develop the patch. This is a chance for critical feedback and guidance on how to realize your project.

Due 3/2: Midterm Project and in-class critique

The midterm project is not limited to, but itself HAS to use the following:

Realtime Audio and/or video playback speed manipulation
Interactive user input
A fixed data source, or real-time data stream of some kind

Due 3/16: Written Peer Critiques

Everyone will give three brief written critiques post-midterm,-at least one page each (but no more than two), double-spaced, 12-point font. Each member of the groups of three will give two in-group and one out-of group, while the group of two will give one in-group and two out-of group. We’ll use a random generator to decide the out-of-group crits.

In your written critiques, you must address and comment on the following with regards to the three projects you are responsible for evaluating:

Aesthetics: what are your personal, embodied impressions, as a reader of the project, considering what you know about the project and the person making it, and what they are trying to communicate and/or accomplish?
Audience: Given the project’s stated audience, what are you noticing it does well to reach that audience, how do you suppose it might impact that audience?
Technique: Open the Max patch. Imagine you’re collaborating with the author. Is the technique clear? Can you understand what is being executed by looking at it? Are there comments that explain the intent of certain aspects? Do variable and function names make sense in the context of their use? Are there techniques that surprise you, or that you didn’t know about being used?

Additional Resources:

Max/MSP Tutorials Page

Cycling ’74 Forums

Data Visualization as Critical Making

By Isabella Wang

On February 7, 2022

In Student Blog

Examples of Data Visualization, made with Canva

Visuals like these have become a part of our everyday lives. If you clicked into the most recent COVID-19 article, chances are it will have some sort of data visualization of the number of people sick, how that compares to the past month, and what percentage have already been vaccinated.

Due to the rise of big data and improvements in computational power, graphs and charts like these are no longer time-consuming to produce, because we can have machines perform most of the tedious tasks for us. Therefore, they have become the new standard. Just like “pics or it didn’t happen”, if you want to tell someone that something is true or if you want someone to understand how important an issue is, you should have the numbers to back it up. As a society, we have been trained by graphs and charts to develop trust in numbers and statistics and understand the severity of something by how it compares to a reference point. For example, when the NOAA and NASA report annual global temperatures, they focus not on the temperature itself but on how they compare to the 20^th-century average.

However, the way that numbers are presented can be more nuanced than we realize. If somebody told you that back in 1991, 215 out of every 100,000 cancer patients passed away, but in 2019, 146 out of every 100,000 cancer patients passed away, would you have a good feel for what that means? What if they told you that the overall cancer death rate has dropped by about a third from 1991 to 2019? Or, if they added that this means we have averted about 3.5 million deaths due to cancer during that time period? Immediately, you have a much better understanding of the significant progress cancer research has made.

Here is another example, this time from the CDC:

Source: “When Data Visualization Really Isn’t Useful (and When It Is)” by Christopher Berry, May 11, 2021 on Old Street Solutions

At first glance, it seems to make sense. The states in darker colors are the states that have the most reported cases of COVID-19. Instinctively, we understand that the darker a color is, the higher the number it represents. However, if you look closely, the coloring is all out of order. States that have no reported cases are in a darker shade than states that have 1 to 100 cases. States that have the most cases (10,001 or more) are in a light yellow. It is also very difficult to distinguish states that have no cases and states that have 101 to 1,000 cases, because they are in a similar shade of orange. This is a good example of how data can be 100% accurate, but still lead the audience to the wrong conclusion because of a simple mismatch of colors.

I think data visualizations are examples of critical making and new media because they harness technology to extend our ability to share with others our own interpretations of data. They transform numbers into something that humans can interact with. Without visualization and interpretation, data is unintelligible and therefore meaningless. However, like in the example above, we must think critically about how best to present the information to an audience that wants to glean the most out of a visual from just a quick glance. Misleading information that produces the wrong conclusion is worse than no information. Also, not every correlation is meaningful, and not everything that data proves is logical. For example, hot weather may increase ice cream sales and the risk of sunburn, which statistically correlates ice cream sales to the risk of sunburn, but we realize that this cannot be logistically true.

Source: Data Viz Project

With the growth of big data and artificial intelligence, we will only have increasingly more data points to tamper with. Data visualizations encourage us to rethink what critical making means in 2022, because the message is entirely within the medium. Traditional bar graphs and pie charts are suitable for very specific data interpretations, allowing us to see simple trends and percentages. Less conventional data visualization methods have gained popularity in the last few years, due to their ability to convey meaning in ways that traditional statistical charts can no longer compete with. Alluvial diagrams represent changes in the composition of something over time. Hive plots highlight how well something can satisfy a set of criteria. Radial histograms make it easy to display more data bars without overwhelming the reader. However, each form also comes with its own disadvantages. It takes thoughtful implementation to ensure that the form of visualization does not get in the way of interpreting the data, and complements the message it is intended to convey.

Source: “The Unwelcomed” project on ALHADAQA by Mohamad Waked

Data visualizations can also be a part of nonviolent-yet-disruptive protests, similar to electronic civil disobedience, because numbers help to justify and raise morale for activism. Websites such as the Pew Research Center and ProPublica routinely employ data visualizations to unveil important findings on social issues such as gun violence and environmental pollution. You also have independent data visualization designers such as Mohamad Waked, who started his own data visualization lab. One of his projects was an online interactive story based on the number of migrants and refugees that have passed away while crossing borders. His data visualization map helps to put into perspective the significance of the issue around the world.

Although data visualizations are not usually thought of as an art form, I would argue that it can be very powerful because it has the potential to tell true stories with a single visual. Just as a poet chooses their rhyme scheme and meter, a data visualization designer carefully chooses the form of visualization that enables their data to speak for itself. Misunderstanding can lead to false insights and poor decision-making, all under the assumption that it was backed by real data.

Isabella Wang, Feb. 7 2022

VMS 290S Spring 2022

Seven Grams – An Example of Critical Making

By Alistair Simmons

On February 7, 2022

In Student Blog

The project – Seven Grams

Seven Grams is an augmented reality project by Karim Ben Khalif that visualizes the implications of extracting rare earth minerals for phones. It is called “Seven Grams” because your phone contains roughly seven grams of precious materials such as cobalt, gold, cassiterite, and wolframite. By visualizing the production chain of the iPhone, viewers recognize the human cost required in the production of consumer technology. By situating the development of smart phones with the emergence of exploitative economies, the project aims to denaturalize technological neutrality. The medium and message are in tension with each other because the augmented reality runs on phones that have already been produced, meaning that the program still relies on the very medium it criticizes to deliver its message. However, by uncovering the hidden reality behind the marketing of developing technology, people are forced to acknowledge the implications of constant smartphone consumption. In many ways, the augmented reality creates a dystopian world that is historically accurate to alienate people from their phones and technology. The augmented reality media acts as speculative design because it addressed a twofold societal issue: the vast human costs of exploitation in creating technology and consumer’s addiction to wasteful practices of updating and purchasing new technology. Once people apprehend the human cost behind their new gadgets, they will experience guilt for their consumptive lifestyle and will be less likely to be fooled by advertisements that display the benevolence of emerging technology. Although the media program does not dismantle anything, the project serves the purpose of electronic civil disobedience by creating an anti-advertisement that intends to change consumer practices away from consumption. By centering the narrative of those experiencing dehumanization through rare earth mineral extraction, the Seven Grams project flips the script surrounding smartphones to reveal the unsettling consequences of their production.

The Seven Grams project has three forms of media: augmented reality, a documentary, and solution journalism. Both the augmented reality and documentary are in 3D because Karim Ben Khelifa documented his surroundings with emerging media such as VR, AR, and 360-degree soundscapes that immerse the audience more deeply into the reality he describes. Solution journalism centers developing changes to people’s behavior and concrete measure to improve the conditions that people are subjected to within the media. Not only does the media demonstrate the human cost involved, but it “will also offer them a lever to improve the way hardware manufacturers source gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten.” The program also centers the geopolitical relationships between the US and the Democratic Republic of Congo to visualize the global imbalances within the unequal exchange of commodities in technological production. The inequality is visualized by the demonstration that “he world’s most powerful economy, the United States, has been valued at $21 000 billion in 2020, the total value of the mineral resources in the soil of the DRC is estimated at $24 000 billion.” Then the medium asks the question: how is this possible when the DRC is 175^th out of 181 countries on the Human Development Index. By situating the extractive economies of smartphones within the reality of economic inequality, consumers are forced to grapple with the international and geopolitical consequences of their purchasing habits. The media is an example of critical making because it intends to disrupt the exchanges between producers and suppliers that make this ongoing inequality a reality, immersing the consumers in an augmented reality that has always been intentionally hidden from them.

Get the app on the App store!

Seven Grams – An Example of Critical Making

By Alistair Simmons

On February 7, 2022

In Uncategorized

The project – Seven Grams

The Seven Grams project has three forms of media: augmented reality, a documentary, and solution journalism. Both the augmented reality and documentary are in 3D because Karim Ben Khelifa documented his surroundings with emerging media such as VR, AR, and 360-degree soundscapes that immerse the audience more deeply into the reality he describes. Solution journalism centers developing changes to people’s behavior and concrete measure to improve the conditions that people are subjected to within the media. Not only does the media demonstrate the human cost involved, but it “will also offer them a lever to improve the way hardware manufacturers source gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten.” The program also centers the geopolitical relationships between the US and the Democratic Republic of Congo to visualize the global imbalances within the unequal exchange of commodities in technological production. The inequality is visualized by the demonstration that “he world’s most powerful economy, the United States, has been valued at $21 000 billion in 2020, the total value of the mineral resources in the soil of the DRC is estimated at $24 000 billion.” Then the medium asks the question how is this possible when the DRC is 175^th out of 181 countries on the Human Development Index. By situating the extractive economies of smartphones within the reality of economic inequality, consumers are forced to grapple with the international and geopolitical consequences of their purchasing habits. The media is an example of critical making because it intends to disrupt the exchanges between producers and suppliers that make this ongoing inequality a reality, immersing the consumers in an augmented reality that has always been intentionally hidden from them.

Get the app on the App store!

Baseball-reference.com : Critically made?

By Molly Honecker

On February 7, 2022

In Student Blog

I chose to explore the website baseball-reference.com, an archive of professional baseball statistics. I chose to link Barry Bonds’ page specifically, as he has been a topic of discussion recently in the public sphere/baseball world because his final year of eligibility for being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame just passed. Also, his page is one of the most interesting/extreme in terms of leadership in certain statistical categories. When I took screenshots of the page they were blurry and difficult to see, so I encourage those unfamiliar with the website to explore the linked page and the home page.

In terms of whether this site can be considered “old” or New Media, I would firmly say it can be considered New. As discussed by Mark Hansen, one function of New Media can be “to mediate for human experience the non- (or proto-) phenomenological, fine-scale temporal computational processes.” I think this site certainly does that. Despite its relatively simple presentation, the tabulation of massive amounts of actions over more than 100 years and the use of them to calculate a wide collection of “advanced” statistics opens up a whole new way for viewers to perceive and judge what is going on in the game.

When considering if this website could be considered a product of critical making, my initial reaction was a hard no. I had previously interacted with it thinking of it as an archive of factual events that was/is produced with no real mediation/critical purpose (a neutral technology). However, I decided to look at the website’s stated purposes and it said this: the “purpose” of the site is to “…be the trusted source of information and tools that inspire and empower our users to enjoy, understand, and share the sports they love” and the “mission” of those working on it is to “…strive to work with respect, reliability with oomph, and craftsmanship, and also to promote the democratization of sports data.”

This democratization point was interesting to me. I think a function of the site being “New Media” as well as being mostly open access is that it accomplishes this goal. For “advanced” statistics, as well as historical information about the game, to become more accessible to the general public (rather than just team execs) makes people appreciate the deep roots and complexities of what is going on in front of them. In certain cases, particularly with Bond’s page, it can show just how impressive a particular person’s performance was in relation to their peers through all the bolded, italicized, and gold values on their charts, and possibly give the viewer a new appreciation for these athletic feats.

However, I still do not think the site qualifies as an act of critical making because it contributes to a kind of mental dissonance between the tabulator/viewer and those working as part of the game because every aspect of their work is distilled into numbers.

The only details about who these people are outside of the game/their work that the viewer gets are a little picture of them and some basic biographical info. Other than that, it is all totals, rankings, and percentages. How does this interact with/demonstrate what we value about professional sports and the people that play them? If someone had some kind of egregious injury in the middle of a season, for example, that is represented only in subpar metrics for that year, a deficiency, rather than a scary instance of physical pain. It fails to reckon with the context these people lived/are living through, and with a sport like baseball with such a long history with eras characterized by wildly different social and political norms, this can be extremely influential. It also fails to reckon with how advanced stats are not just neutral numbers, and are becoming more and more utilized in the management and business sides of the sport despite being nowhere near a perfect science.

If the goal of critical making is to, as Hertz states, “to un-sanitize, un-smooth and re-politicize” the making of things, I think this site and its layout kind of do the opposite. It smooths, sanitizes, and depoliticizes a very complicated business and apparatus of modern culture.