1. AS A CREATIVE CASE-STUDY, THIS WORK TAKES, AS AN EXAMPLE, A TYPE OF ‘RADICAL’ DATA VISUALISATION COMMON IN THE DIGITAL

HUMANITIES. DESPITE CLAIMS FOR THE RADICAL METHODOLOGY OF DATA VISUALISATION IN THIS FIELD, THIS WORK FINDS SUCH

METHODOLOGIES TO BE CONSERVATIVE.

2. THROUGH A COMPARISON WITH DESTRUCTIVE ART AND AN ASSESSMENT IN AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK, WE FIND THE SELF-

PROCLAIMED ACT OF THE AVANTE GARDE IN DATA VISUALIZATION CAN BE SEEN AS AN ACT OF STRUCTURAL SOCIAL CONSERVATISM.

A VISUAL TONE POEM EXPLORING THECONSERVATISM OF CONTEMPORARY

DATA VISUALISATION IN POETRYMONICA CARROLL, UNIVERSITY OF CANBERRA

a·vant-garde

/avänt gärd/

1. new and unusual or

experimental ideas, especially in

the arts, or the people

introducing them. (Hinchcliffe 2014)

“TRANSFORM THE OBSCURE

RAMBLINGS OF ESTEEMED

AUSTRALIAN POETS INTO THE

ICONOGRAPHIC IDIOM OF OUR AGE”

INTENT OF THE SCRUTINISED CASE STUDY

the radical promise of digital humanities as the lifeline for declining

disciplines has had a questionable impact (see Deegan 2014 or Eyers 2013

for support of the heroic properties of digital humanities)

so too can we question the call for a new future where data visualisation

satisfies a significant need in society (see Banu 2014 regarding

infographics as the most significant requirement of our age)

the “new capacities” of data and technology formed a ‘shield’ against

institutional threats (see the manifesto of Back and Puwar 2012)

visualisation of poems is a branch of data visualisation taken up as part of this atmosphere

(see Abdul-Rahman “rule-based solution” to visualising poems 2013)

(see Strehovec as an example of the digital poetry ‘revolution’ 2004)

in fact, conservatism is inherent in the data visualisation project as

the following case study demonstrates...

A poem by Professor Paul Hetherington

A data visualisation machine

by Dr Geoff Hinchcliffe

Predictable manifestation

of a social structure

01

02

03

TZARA, 191904

“[DaDa Visualisation was]

…inspired by Tristan Tzara’s DaDa

poetry, in which the words of a

newspaper article are randomly

reassembled to create an original

poem” (Hinchcliffe 2015).

HINCHCLIFFE, 2015

Printout from the data vizmachine

05

4820 4847 29

4848 49 208

9237 98 0

848 948 48

4820 84923 489

89 48934 4783

4839 4892 3456

39 54 0

Moustaches on a postcard 1919-2019

VISUAL DESTRUCTIONTRADITIONS: TRENDS

& TECHNOLOGY

06

FLUID PIGMENTS

Thomas Robson. Fluid Pigments Series, part of

COLLISION

Thomas Robson. Collision Art Series, part of

07

08

Against Art: Beyond Scissorsand Moustache (1)

AFTER BOTTICELLI, THE BIRTH OF VENUS

, Zarathustra the Cat

BARBIE AS VENUS OF URBINO AFTER TITIAN

Kristyna and Marek Milde

INFLATABLE MUNCK

Thomas Hoepker

09

10

11

Against Art: Beyond Scissorsand Moustache (2)

HINCHCLIFFE, 2014

Extract from

12 BROODTHAERS,1969

13

Poem Against Poem (1)

HINCHCLIFFE, 2014

Extract from

14VALOCH, 1967

homage to Stockhausen

15

Poem Against Poem (2)

HINCHCLIFFE, 2014

Extract from

16 NATIONS, 197817

Poem Against Poem (3)

HINCHCLIFFE, 2014

Extract from

18 LUTHI, 201119

Poem Against Poem (4)

01

Is this data visualisation challenging ‘The Establishment’

by disrespecting the position of poet professor? Is it

entering the jungle of taboo; enacting the forbidden?

Contrary to pushing the boundaries of acceptabilty, the

data visualisation process is deeply conservative.

Data visualisation does not need to engage with the work

at all for the enterprise is not from the ethos of Dada, but

instead a form of sanctioned play that is far from radical

and avant garde.

PAUL HETHERINGTON DEPICTED IN LEGO WITHREFERENCE TO THE MOMENT OF INSPIRATIONIN THE FILM DEAD POET’S SOCIETY

20

A R Radcliffe-BrownIn 1913 Brown wrote a revolution in anthropology. His ethnographic

text, , not only describes and lists

the qualities he observed in his ethnography but develops a poetic

writing strategy that allows each described part to unfold, until, by

the end of his written work, we are presented with a cohesive whole

(See Rumsey for further description of Radcliffe-Brown’s synchronic

functionalism 2004:273).

In this text, various layers of kinship structures, such as who could

marry who, who could initiate whom, reflected not just relationships

between groups of people, but obligations to a cosmological totemic

template that determined all cultural activity and interactions. In

contrast to those before him, Radcliffe-Brown wrote a world, not a

society merely governed by rules.

21

23

22

Radcliffe-Brown ‘explained’, in his holsitic way, the joking relationship

between a person and their mother’s brother. That is, between ego

and the maternal uncle. In the anthropological world it is unusual and

exciting to find in patrilineal organisational principles a reversal of the

rules of respect.

“For our purposes, the aim is not to debunk the trope of mother’s

brother, but to position the issue not as one of empirical facts against

fact but, as Kopytoff notes, that “…the argument becomes a

philosophical one about the nature of ‘satisfactory’ explanation”

(1964:628)” (Carroll 2014).

482552650 4847 29

48486364j 44bawrnng55

5457539

2br08

9grgnt237 98 0

848ndfgn 948 523448

4820 84923 48947642757\

8hdrydrg9 489427\5\75\7534 4783wrWRBawR

4839 48hj,lh;]h;92 34zsweQEW56

W39 54 0

“It is easy enough toinvent hypotheses. Theimportant and difficultwork begins when weset out to verify them”(Radcliffe-Brown1924:547).24

#05

A JOKING RELATION IS “…BETWEEN TWO PERSONS IN WHICH ONEIS BY CUSTOM PERMITTED, AND IN SOME INSTANCES REQUIRED,

TO TEASE OR MAKE FUN OF THE OTHER, WHO IN TURN ISREQUIRED TO TAKE NO OFFENCE” (RADCLIFFE-BROWN 1940:195).

The mother’s brother relationship is ajoking relationship. A joking relationship isone in which certain behaviours that areusually not tolerated are structurallypermitted. Anthropological investigationshave described joking realtionships iteratedthrough teasing, verbal abuse, sexualisedplay or entitlement.

Hentschel describes the ways in which weascribe kinship terms to non-kin people(2012). This has the effect of establishingnon-kin within a hierarchy and ascribingeither elevation or degradation to thoseascribed to certain roles. Family terms canbe used to adopt someone but also tobelittle or insult them.

Anthropological tropes, such as mother’s

brother joking relationship assist us in

understanding creative production. To

uncreate, destroy and disrespect the

creative artefact, in this case, by Hinchcliffe

to Hetherington, is, as Radcliffe-Brown

says, a “show of hostility” (Radcliffe-Brown

1940:200). It is a dramatisation of

structures and values (Parkin 1993:252).

“ “…[T]he perpetual disrespect, is a continual

expression of that social disjunction which is an

essential part of the whole structural situation,

but over which, without destroying or even

weakening it, there is provided the social

conjunction of friendliness and mutual aid”

(Radcliife-Brown 1940: 200).

25

THE JOKING RELATIONSHIPIS NOT A RADICALSTRUCTURE. IT ISCONVENTIONAL ANDCONSERVATIVE.

NO

T RA

DIC

AL

The data visualisation process does

not

In this case study, the

data visualization does “produce”

“re-produces”

1. Hetherington, P., 2007.

2. Hinchliffe, G., 2014 In Faculty of Arts andDesign, 2014.

3. Hinchliffe, G., 2011.

4. Tzara, T., 1977.

5. Hinchliffe, G., 2015.

6. Duchamp, M., 1919.

7. Robson, T., n.d.

8. Robson, T., n.d.

9. Cat, Zarathustra the., n.d.

10. Milde, Kristyna and Milde, Marek., n.d.

11. Hoepker, T., n.d

12. Hinchcliffe, G., 2014.

13. Broodthaers, M., 1969.

14. Hinchcliffe, G., 2014.

15. Valoch, J., 1967.

16. Hinchcliffe, G., 2014.

17. Nations, O. L., 1978.

18. Hinchcliffe, G., 2014.

19. Luthi, L., 2011.

20. Jay, 2014.

21. Gregory, C., 2013.

22. Brown, A. R., 1913. p178

23. Brown, A. R., 1913.

24. Meskwaki Settlement School, 2016.

25. Hinchcliffe, G., 2015.

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