Poster Statement
June 13-15, CCCB Vestíbul Theatre
Keywords: immersive analytics, trading, visualisation, sonification, neuroaesthetics
The poster describes a series of audio-visual installations and VR environments, algorithmically extrapolated from the time-sequenced changes of multiple values, e.g., from financial data feeds. It critically reflects upon gambling tendencies in the global trading of various, increasingly immaterial assets.
The presented work series is situated in the intersection of immersive formats of the audio-visual art and the emerging research area of immersive analytics. This series is critically motivated by the re-emergent and growing prominence of gambling factors in global economic activities – such as institutional promotion of increasingly complex investment products for masses, crypto-asset trading, online casinos, etc. Political philosopher Michael J. Sandel describes several last decades as a “drift from ‘market economy’ to becoming a ‘market society’”. Algorithmically manipulated financial trading is a prominent arena where algorithms merge with human emotions and value-seeking drives into a global hybrid sensorium. As sociologist Georg Simmel had observed it in already in 1900: “Reality and value as mutually independent categories through which our conceptions become images of the world”. Mapping of the behaviour patterns in trader psychology has been an important aspect of the training in the trading process, besides the implementation and development of various mathematical models. It now appears, that value storage and trading infrastructure increasingly merge with methods of manipulation of human attention and emotions, and are mediated by computer networks, and increasingly – Machine Learning and AI. As an practical effort in artistic research in phenomenology and neuroaesthetics, this work proposes a set of parameters for simulated anisotropy, useful for designing the structure, notation, and physical, mathematical dimensions in the VR interface and environment.
- Jānis Garančs is an artist and immersive media researcher. He has initial training in classical fine arts in Riga, Latvia, further studies of video and computer art at the KKH, Stockholm, Sweden, and digital audio-visual media at the KHM (Academy of Media Arts), Cologne, Germany. Since 2000 he works primarily with interactive multi-media installations and performances, focusing on stereoscopic imagery and 3D sound, exploring perceptual phenomenology of immersive audiovisual expression. He has contributed to various international media art community events as an artist, presenter in events like Ars Electronica, Transmediale, DEAF, ISEA, Expo 2000 and venues such as BNMI/Banff, V2/Rotterdam, SAT/Montreal, ICA/London, RIXC/Riga. Additionally, he has been involved in several international research projects focusing on interactive TV platforms. He is a co-founder and project consultant at RIXC Centre for New Media Culture. http://www.garancs.net