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Jeanyoon Choi (b.1999) is a Computational Artist researching in interconnectivity and complexity through Multi-Device Web Artworks.

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jeanyoon.ch@oi /oi % cat platform-art

Platform Art

2024-08-16

At Tatsuo Miyajima’s Naoshima house project, repeated numerical displays count at different speeds. Each follows a related rule, yet their timing differs. One display, many synchronised displays and many asynchronous displays produce very different experiences. My idea of platform art begins with the third.

Its basic unit is a module governed by a rule. Call it M(t), where t is an input such as time or speed. Repeat the module, but vary its state and parameters. The underlying M remains recognisable while its instances diverge.

A small difference between otherwise similar units can generate a striking difference in the whole. I connect this to Baudrillard’s least marginal difference. The result can resemble an ecology of modules rather than a single image multiplied.

Small multiples in data visualisation offer a useful comparison, but I am particularly interested in dynamics. Rather than presenting a set of static cross-sections, the modules allow relationships to unfold through time.

A literal train platform helped form this idea. At London Victoria, departure boards share a layout while displaying different information and changing at different moments. The tension between resemblance and difference gives the place its atmosphere.

The OPIc test centre offers another image: thirty computers showing the same avatar, Ava, speaking at slightly different moments and in different contexts. The repeated character becomes at once efficient, awkward, utopian and dystopian.

Miyajima’s counters are a particularly clear reference. Counting through one to nine and a blank interval is a simple shared structure. Different speeds and starting points make their aggregate more than a synchronised display.

Some multichannel interactive works provide a useful contrast. Where one overarching input continuously coordinates all outputs—for example, breathing that governs a field of lights—the channels may remain subordinate to a single rule of synchronisation. In what I am calling platform art, each module needs some degree of autonomy, even while it shares an algorithmic or visual foundation with the others.

Nonequality, Das Gerede and, to an extent, Factory 4.0 explore this. Das Gerede is particularly close to the station-board observation: a shared presentation structure populated by generated conversations that parody the idle exchanges of everyday life.

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