Lit 80, Fall 2013
Header

Science DataVis

Ebocloud Novel Response

November 18th, 2013 | Posted by Mithun Shetty in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Recent years of rapid technological development demonstrate increasing societal dependence on technology. Devices and programs are being invented one after the other that alter our perception of the world around us and augment our ability to communicate with one another. Google Glasses overlay technology onto the world around us and improve our ability to interact with the world around us. Applications on our mobile devices allow us to perform tasks on-the-go formerly thought to be impossible. In this way, man and machine seem to be becoming one. As social integration and access to such technology becomes more popular, we may be simultaneously losing the power to remain independent of technology. This dependence on technology is not completely grounded in necessity, either; while we do use it to store the information integral to running our infrastructures, we also have come to rely on it to live socially amongst each other. The amount of data being generated about and shared with millions of users on the internet’s social media networks is endless. Facebook generates about 500 terabytes of data on its users each day, none of which is essential for our existence or survival. Yet, people have turned to social networks because it is a very accessible, easy, and instantly-gratifying method of finding old and new friends and sharing your life with them (without going through the work of actually doing so physically). This social dynamic begs the question: What is the next stage in merging sociality and technology?

Rick Moss’s Ebocloud is an immersive science fiction novel that depicts a near-future in which a new social network entitled “Ebocloud” has become a huge social construct in daily life. This network groups its millions of users into separate families (based on their personalities and preferences) and utilizes a data cloud that acts as a server for sharing information between the members. The cloud connects to their minds and bodies via digital tattoos and stores thoughts, ideas, and experiences within the cloud. These tattoos, among other things, have the ability to control hormonal balances within a person, allowing for neurological rewards for doing certain tasks and good deeds within your Ebocloud family. Clearly, Ebocloud is an example of system that is almost 100% integrated into the daily lives of mankind. The cloud “families” you are placed in group you with those who are similar to you, allowing facilitated communication of thoughts and ideas. This type of system has major drawbacks alongside its supposed benefits. While it does help you meet new like-minded individuals while simultaneously accomplishing volunteerism/positive karma/social helping (via the kar-merit system, in which those who do “good” things are rewarded with more influence and power in Ebocloud), the negatives may outweigh these benefits. Not only are you essentially forfeiting all of your privacy to those in control and maintenance of the cloud, but you are slowly and surely losing your individuality by separating into a cloud. Families can be seen as separate homogenates of certain individuals who, after a certain amount of time, may fail to contribute new ideas and content to their families and simply perpetuate the same shared ideas instead (after all, there is no privacy among families, and everyone is working towards the goal of attaining kar-merits). Most importantly, however, the biggest danger in using such a system is the biological component of this network. Without the tattoos, this network is relatively harmless. However, allowing a vast system beyond your personal control to directly influence the inner processes of your body (i.e. hormonal balances) is a dangerous, terrifying idea. You are forfeiting your control over your body – it is as if you are giving a set of strangers the green light to drug you whenever they desire. There is also no escape from participation, as the tattoos are permanent. To engage in such a network is to have complete faith that the system is and will forever remain free of corruption, which is a dangerously naïve mistake. The plot of the novel goes on to show a scenario in which the controlling few of the cloud fall into the throes of corruption, putting the protagonists into a dangerous, compromising situation. This not-too-distant hypothetical raises some interesting questions about our real lives. When will we draw the line between technology and privacy? Is it likely that we will ever settle for a certain level of technological development, or will we continue to integrate it into our daily lives? Also, how will increased reliance on technology shape the way we interact with each other and live our lives? How much is too much?

 

Macroanalysis thoughts

October 4th, 2013 | Posted by Sai Cheemalapati in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

In my opinion, data encompasses all things that can be considered information. Information can vary in type and scope, and by looking at it from different angles we can reach different conclusions about its nature. Distant reading, or “macroanalysis” focuses on understanding beyond the minutia of individual works but rather more general understanding of a larger class – such as a genre or time period [1]. Just as close, detailed reading has it’s merits in understanding the implications of a particular work, macroanalysis can give understanding to it’s context. Take for example the use of macroanalysis to identify J.K Rowling as the author of the crime novel “The Cuckoo’s Calling” [2]. The book was released under a pseudoname, but by comparing it to Rowling’s other books using macroanalysis techniques, like comparing word length and adjacency.  Projects like Google N-Grams and roadtrip maps are useful because they provide visual context to a large amount of data. As a result, we can see relationships that would not so easily be spotted in close reading. In the n-gram project, we can see the relationship and uses of words across time periods in literature. We can make conclusions based on the use and disuse of a word over time, like the rise in the use of cities during the industrial period. Projects like these augment scholarship in a scope sense. They allow us to step further back and approach genres rather than particular pieces of literature. I don’t think they necessarily augment reality – but provide a new way of visualizing it.

 

[1] http://www.matthewjockers.net/2011/07/01/on-distant-reading-and-macroanalysis/

[2] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10178344/JK-Rowling-unmasked-as-author-of-acclaimed-detective-novel.html

Is Literature Data?

October 4th, 2013 | Posted by Zhan Wu in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Is literature data? Yes and no.

From a layman’s perspective, no.  The fact is that nobody except critics of digital humanities has ever seriously considered this question. We were all brought up believing that every literature piece we read and see, whether fiction, non-fiction, poetry or prose, is an artistic piece that reflects the author’s intentions, aspirations and quite possibly hidden philosophical ideas. To consider a literature piece just an accumulation of written language symbols, alphabetical letters, individual soundwaves or paint strokes seems absurd to many of us, and fairly so. Literature is in a sense not data because merely analyzing this art in terms of scientific means takes away the most significant aspects of a literature piece: the author’s artistic and creative elements. These factors just cannot be simply “measured” and summarized like it can be done with computer algorithms. In fact, a specific literature work might garner thousands upon thousands of different interpretations, each with it’s own unique analytic aspects, whereas data, with its ultra-clear structure and quantitative properties, might merely yield one result. Stephen Marche, in his critique Literature is not Data, even goes as far as to claim that “the story of literature [regarded as] data is a series of…failures.” [1] Therefore, in this perspective, literature cannot be stringently considered to be data.

We also, however, have to accept the fact that literature works, though fraught with myriads of interpretations, are on the very basic level still a construction of numerous individual aspects that ultimately come together, and that those aspects can be analyzed one by one for finding principle and relationships in a literature piece. Franco Moretti advocated the notion of “distant reading”, which means that we should not interpret written literature in terms of studying specific texts, but “by aggregating and analyzing massive amounts of data.” [1] This may seem a radical proposal, but it does have some meaning attached to it and is a valuable exercise to engage in. Literature pieces themselves have been segmented by people into parts in terms of their many meanings, such as different genres, chapters, settings, plot details, persons (protagonist, antagonist etc.), archetypes, symbols and the list goes on. Furthermore, as books and the like appear more prolifically around us nowadays, it becomes increasingly harder to read and analyze all written text. Data accumulation software and websites such as Google Ngram [2] and Understanding Shakespeare [3] have opened up opportunities for people to achieve their research objectives without having to skim through the information from piles of books. With these new abilities, the digital humanities and its many revolutionary aspects (i.e. distant reading) have practically “augmented” scholarship and reality alike by creating new paths for research, interpretation and exploration both for classical and newly-emerging literature works.

References:

[1] Marche Stephen, Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities, http://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/literature-is-not-data-against-digital-humanities/.Accessed Oct. 2, 2013

[2] Google Ngram Viewer, Google Inc., http://books.google.com/ngrams. Accessed Oct. 2, 2013.

[3] Understanding Shakespeare, http://www.understanding-shakespeare.com/. Accessed Oct. 2, 2013.

 

Is Literature Data?

October 4th, 2013 | Posted by Mithun Shetty in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

Generally, whether or not literature is data depends on your definition of data. If one is to classify data simply as information that can be quantified or analyzed in some way, then literature would absolutely fit that definition. Data is not just scientific observations, mathematical figures, or sets of graphs – media can be considered data as well. Music, literature, even paintings – one can perform all sorts of analyses on these works to generate data, both quantitative and qualitative. Marche’s article refers to the analysis of literature as data as “distant reading.” While he argues that this type of approach to reading ruins the experience as we know it, I believe that it is instead a different, valuable sub-discipline of literature. Distant reading, or macroanalysis, allows one to have a multidimensional understanding of a work. Its context in a larger literary ecosystem (period in time, cultural significance, etc.) can be understood by treating the book on a more holistic level. One can understand writing styles, forms, and conventions by looking at literature objectively; temporarily staying away from subjective plot or thematic analyses and looking at the mechanical details of literature opens it up to an entirely different type of scholarship, namely digital humanities. This additional perspective on the same work should be welcomed and valued. The projects studied in the course improve the quality of literature scholarship – they are tools we can use to gain another perspective beyond the scope of unassisted brainpower alone. Especially with larger volumes, using tools to perform distant reading can almost instantly compile word patterns, trends, and more and present them in such a way as to facilitate our digestion of the information. In this sense, these projects augment reality. They give us “superpowers” of analysis. They allow us to access an entire history of literature and academia instantly, which would be otherwise impossible.  The most obvious value in using digital tools to analyze literature as data is that it allows us to handle large volumes of information much more easily and efficiently.

Marche, Stephen. “Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities.” Los Angeles Review of Books. 28 Oct 2012: n. page. Web. 2 Oct. 2013.

The argument of whether literature is data depends upon the definition of data. Data can be viewed in a negative connotation, in a way that removes the artistic and creative elements and turns something into a quantitative subject. It can also be viewed simply as a form of information, from which we can establish interpretations and analyses that we can learn from. In his article Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities, Stephen Marche makes several bold statements claiming the introduction of digital books have brought about the “…end of the book as we know it”. However, digitizing literature offers us an additional medium through which literature can be experienced, analyzed, and interpreted in different ways. It is not the end of the book as we know it, but rather the expansion of the book as we know it. Literature has always been taken apart—quotes, syntax, characters, plots, symbols, themes, and more have been discussed, interpreted, debated, and given meaning since their origin. Digitizing books doesn’t put an end to this kind of thinking, but rather provides tools that allow us to go even further in depth. Digital tools, such as n-gram, allow us to compare thousands of types of literature in seconds. Computer algorithms allow us to delve into details that would take years of collecting and studying to analyze in as little as a few seconds.
Literature has always been data—we have always learned from it and always used it as a tool to examine different elements of writing, human psyche, cultural reflections, and more. Just because there are new means to examining this data doesn’t mean that the old form is nonexistent. The book as we know it today still exists, and personally I prefer reading a hard copy of a book. I can choose not to associate with the digital tools that are being developed and experience books in the more nostalgic form. However, the fact that those digital tools exist provides the opportunity for me to expand my knowledge and understanding of a book, if I choose. Digital tools open the window for books to be examined on a large scale, to go in depth with details, such as word choice, while covering a wide sample, which could range from several works to an entire era’s worth of literature.

Marche, Stephen. “Literature is not Data: Against Digital Humanities.” Los Angeles Review of Books. 28 Oct 2012: n. page. Web. 2 Oct. 2013. .