[ISEA2008] Paper: Wolfgang Strauss & Monika Fleischmann – Aesthetics of Knowledge Space

Abstract 

How to present knowledge as a visible shape? How to visualize it as a space to enter? Looking from a perspective of media art, the artists’ presentation examines the notion of knowledge space. The staging of information structures and the procedure of interactive perception will be exemplified by the authors’ own works.

Introduction                                                                                                                                          Knowledge is understood as something that originates in processes of interacting with the world and is actively constructed by the individual. “You can’t manage knowledge — nobody can. What you can do is to manage the environment in which knowledge can be created, discovered, transferred, adopted, adapted and applied,“ say Knowledge Managers Collison & Parcell. As artists we produce artistic environments in which knowledge can be created. Inspired by art historian Aby Warburg and his notion of the Denkraum, we do
research on the Virtual Denkraum and the aesthetics of staging knowledge space to enter — between experience and expertise. By knowledge space we understand architectural space furnished with data. Thus physical space transforms into a data landscape to walk-in — an interactive environment connecting data, space and user. The visitor of such an environment is not only the protagonist, but also the producer of knowledge through interaction. For the human it becomes an enlarged action space that is experienced fourfold: through perception of the spatial (and other attendees), by exploration of data, production of knowledge through active experience, finally, through communication with others. In this article we introduce media art examples of staging knowledge, driven by different paradigms of interactivity — and as a public space of knowledge.

  • Wolfgang Strauss Monika Fleischmann, Fraunhofer Institute IAIS, MARS — Media Arts & Research Studies, Germany

Full text (PDF) p. 429-431