The Luxury of Protest¹ is a research platform focussed on computational history, archaeo-informatics, and generative visualisation. Employing spatial and temporal archaeological data analysis, projects² examine history through knowledge discovery, machine learning, and computational statistical approaches. Data quantified objects are used to discover and elucidate patterns, trends and relationships between events and material phenomena³ across hidden and heterogeneous axes.


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  1. Peter Crnokrak is a Berlin computation artist, designer and researcher. Peter holds a doctorate in computational science and has lectured at a number of international institutions including the Royal College of Art, London College of Communication and Sint-Lukas School of Design. In 2010, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in acknowledgment of internationally <a href="url">recognised</a> expertise in design and data visualisation. Currently he is <a href="url">professor</a> and programme director of the Visual & Experience Design, and Generative Design & AI master's at UE Germany.
  2. Peter Crnokrak's <a href="url">publications</a> include over 125 books, journals and magazines. He has won a number of international <a href="url">competitions</a> including The Webbys, AIGA 365, German Design Award, International Society of Typographic Designers, and the European Design Awards. His work has been <a href="url">exhibited</a> internationally including Tokyo, Paris, New York, London and Los Angeles. Peter holds two <a href="url">patents</a> in systems design for object-oriented data visualisation.
  3. Focussing on the extremes of societal behaviour as a means by which to characterise the human condition, the practice is an experimental platform that utilises computational methodologies to communicate meaning in complex systems with work integrating research, data mining and statistical analysis.




OBJECTS OF
WAR MCMI–MM
Nº 2


︎03.2023
︎C-TYPE
︎1000MM X 1526MM
︎№ 3
︎BERLIN

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War is the last possible creative act…. the 20th century’s most important scientific discoveries and artistic creations are mapped¹ in time with the incidence of wars, massacres and genocide² to reveal reoccurring patterns of creative human output that flourish after conflict.

Though the cosmically balancing forces of creation, maintenance and destruction are integral to Eastern philosophies as in the Hindu triad manifestation of the supreme God in three forms of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer, the interdependence of each on the other is rarely discussed let alone acknowledged in Western Judeo-Christian cultures.

Objects of War brings a computational perspective to the reconciliation of seemingly paradoxical approaches to the cosmological metaphor of creative and destructive balance in the universe³ with the philosophical doctrine of ultimate reality.


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  1. The lenticular print displays a matrix of 288 creation events arranged in cells in chronological order reading left to right, and top to bottom. The creation events are the most important artistic and scientific creations of the 20th century. Each cell also displays the most proximate conflict event that preceded each creation. Tilt left reveals the date of the conflict and numbers of dead – tilt right reveals the creation date and details of the creation event.
  2. The six frame animation reveals the separation in time between creation and conflict events – entries where there is no visual change in date means both events occurred at the same time. Animation layers also reveal summation data and meta analysis statistics. Overall, 47% of the 20th century’s most important creations occurred during a conflict or war.
  3. The dataset reveals a surprising relationship where scientific and artistic creations often follow wars resulting in a significant positive correlation between destruction and creative output.




VISIONS IN
CATASTROPHE
Nº 23


︎08.2023
︎C-TYPE
︎1000MM X 1000MM
︎№ 5
︎BERLIN

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Visions in catastrophe; conflict and the creative mind. A computational art historical analysis of cataclysm, war, and artistic production.

One hundred and twenty three of history’s most important artistic creations when mapped¹ in relation to the incidence of wars, massacres and genocide, reveal reoccurring patterns of creative human output that flourish after cataclysm. The dataset reveals a statistically significant² increase in creativity after periods of social upheaval, with a pronounced peak in artistic production that occurs during conflict.³


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  1. The proximity of artistic output to cataclysm is coded using a colour refraction scale where white represents those works of art produced during conflict, while colour bands refracting away from white – yellow, orange, red – representing works of art created, one, two, and three years post conflict. The further away from white, the greater the time separation of the date of creation from the conflict event.
  2. Statistical analysis reveals that there is a significant difference from the normal distribution : D'Agostino-Pearson test statistic χ² equals 309.7075, which is not in the 95% region of acceptance, -∞ 5.9915. The p-value equals 0, P ( x≤309.7075 ) = 1. The observed effect size φ is large, 0.915, indicating that the magnitude of the difference between the sample distribution and the normal distribution is large. The measure of skewness is 3.6101, and the shape is asymmetrical right/positive, indicating that the distribution is heavily skewed toward 0 values.
  3. A significant proportion (55/123) of history’s most important works of art were created during conflict. 82 out of 123 works of art were created five years or less post conflict.




OBJECTS OF
WAR OMNIA
Nº 1


︎09.2019
︎C-TYPE
︎1000MM X 1011MM
︎№ 7
︎BERLIN