https://theluxuryofprotest.com The Luxury of Protest Tue, 13 Aug 2024 09:07:34 +0000 https://theluxuryofprotest.com en https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Description Fri, 10 Mar 2023 14:18:18 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Description 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.    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ 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. 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. 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. https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Twilight-Sleep Tue, 13 Aug 2024 09:07:15 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Twilight-Sleep TWILIGHT SLEEP Nº 2︎08.2024 ︎C-TYPE ︎1000MM X 1000MM ︎№ 9 ︎BERLIN https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Twilight-Sleep-_-info Tue, 13 Aug 2024 09:07:34 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Twilight-Sleep-_-info ٭ Twilight Sleep explores the intimate relationship between chemistry and creativity in 19th and 20th century literature. The project maps mass spectrum chemical signatures of various narcotic, entheogenic and psychedelic drugs to qualitative characterisations of literary output¹ to elucidate potential patterns of causation. Mass spectrum analysis reveals the elemental or isotopic signature of compounds and is sensitive enough to elucidate the chemical structure of molecules. The complexity of a drug as well as its isotope distribution is revealed as a distinct fragmentation pattern of banding in the visualisations; white bands indicate isotopic peaks, while rotational smears indicate the duration of effect. The chemical signatures in turn determine the characteristic effects that a drug has on the mind and body. The pattern of banding in the visualisation allows one to see the commonality between different drugs (especially the opioid narcotics and psychedelics), but also allows one to correlate the drug’s molecular composition to the tone of writing used by the author. In general, utopian² and dystopian³ authors share little with regard to their predilections toward certain drugs. An intriguing question remains : to what degree does the distinct chemical signature of a drug and its subsequent unique effect on the brain, determine the philosophical composition of literature?    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ J. Radenkova-Saeva (2008) Recreational Drugs and its Impact on Music Literature and Art, Biotechnology & Biotechnological Equipment, 22:2, 656-659, DOI: 10.1080/13102818.2008.10817530 Mescaline _ Aldous Huxley, Island 1962 : “As Mind at Large seeps past the no longer watertight valve, all kinds of biologically useless things start to happen. In some cases there may be extra-sensory perceptions. Other persons discover a world of visionary beauty. To others again is revealed the glory, the infinite value and meaningfulness of naked existence.... In the final stage of egolessness there is an 'obscure knowledge' that All is in all—that All is actually each.”Ether _ Aleister Crowley, Clouds Without Water 1909 : “Invaluable for mental analysis; also to discover one's own final judgment on any matter.  Gives the power to appreciate the elements of which sensation is made up.”Nitrous oxide _ Theodore Dreiser, Laughing Gas 1914 : “...the clearest most concise expression of the cosmic balance of conflicting forces believed to determine life.”Morphine _ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, A Essay on Mind, with Other Poems 1826 : “I have been calling it my amreeta draught, my elixir—because the tranquilizing power has been wonderful.” LSD _ J.G. Ballard, High-Rise 1975 : “I had such a negative trip, a real paranoid journey of despair. It was over in a day, but little vents of hell went on opening for years afterward, as I gather they do.”Semoxydrine _ Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 1968 : “My major preoccupation is the question, 'What is reality?' Many of my stories and novels deal with psychotic states or drug-induced states by which I can present the concept of a multiverse rather than a universe.”Oxycodone _ William S. Burroughs, Nova Express 1964 : “I tried it as a matter of curiosity.”Cocaine _ Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde 1886 : “That an invalid in my husband's condition of health should have been able to perform the manual labour alone of putting 60,000 words on paper in six days, seems almost incredible.” Thujone _ Arthur Rimbaud, Illuminations 1886 : “A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed--and the Supreme Scientist!” https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Apocalypses-re-Visioned Thu, 07 Mar 2024 09:30:11 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Apocalypses-re-Visioned APOCALYPSES RE- VISIONED︎07.2024 ︎SERIGRAPH︎1000MM X 1000MM︎№ 3︎BERLIN https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Apocalypses-re-Visioned-_-info Thu, 07 Mar 2024 09:34:38 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Apocalypses-re-Visioned-_-info ٭ Apocalypses re-Visioned is a study of literature, catastrophe culture, and the psychopathology of nihilism fetish. The analysis examines the incidence of the use of the word “apocalypse” in 20th century fiction and non-fiction literature as it relates to cataclysm events to determine what factors fuel the cultural predilection to fantasise the end of the world. The piece elaborates the statistical narrative of the analysis through typography; both as a connection to the nature of the source data, and as a reflection of the design of scientific publications.The visualisation of the data is told in a series of four graphs embedded within a text-based metanarrative that explains the key computational findings of the patterns of language use across fiction and non-fiction literary sources. Although one would expect that cataclysmic events such as armed conflict would drive the incidence of “apocalypse” in literature, no such correlation exists.¹ So much so, that during the 20th century’s two most destructive wars, the use of the word was at its lowest in non-fiction literature. A strong positive and statistically significant correlation exists between non-fiction and fiction incidences of “apocalypse”.² Though the relationship between fiction/non-fiction is positive in nature, the incidence of “apocalypse” is staggered in magnitude between the two – a pronounced peak in fiction literature occurs 27 years before an proportionately equivalent one in non-fiction. The analysis suggests that fictional representations of the end of the world drive socially relevant narratives much more than cataclysms experienced in real life.³ Apocalypses re-Visioned is a data-historical analysis of the cataclysm myth – a longing to confront a patently meaningless universe through the creative triumph of destructive imaginings. An end of the world where humanity’s destruction means something. We escape from a present too difficult to bear through a perverse and clichéd eschatological nostalgia presaged on an apocalyptic future. Humanity needs new catastrophe narratives to focus an engagement with more probable dystopias to come.    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ Spearman's Rho Correlation analysis between non-fiction literature references to “apocalypse” and the frequency of armed conflict (number of wars per year) : N = 101, T= 2.4128, r² = 0.05554, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient = 0.2357. P-value = 2 * Min(p, 1 - p) = 2 * Min(0.9912, 0.008835) = 0.9912. The result is not significant at p < .01. Pearson Correlation Coefficient analysis between fiction and non-fiction literature corpora : N = 101, X values mean = 3.1666734e-5, Y values mean = 1.9394667e-5, r = 30593.257 / √((69847.168)(21280.158)) r = 0.7935. P-Value is < .00001. The result is significant at p < .01. Fiction corpus references to “apocalypse” peak in 1972 – 27 years before an equivalent peak in references to “apocalypse” in non-fiction literature. The magnitude difference between fiction and non-fiction corpora references to “apocalypse” in 1972 was 3.2 fold : 9.85991e-5% / 3.10295e-5%, fiction / non-fiction respectively. https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Objects-of-War-No-2-1 Fri, 10 Mar 2023 14:18:17 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Objects-of-War-No-2-1 OBJECTS OF WAR MCMI–MM Nº 2︎03.2023 ︎C-TYPE ︎1000MM X 1526MM ︎№ 3 ︎BERLIN https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Objects-of-War-No-2-_-info-1 Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:20:28 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Objects-of-War-No-2-_-info-1 ٭ 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.    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ 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. 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. 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. https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Visions-in-Catastrophe-No-23 Fri, 10 Mar 2023 14:18:18 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Visions-in-Catastrophe-No-23 VISIONS IN CATASTROPHE Nº 23︎03.2023 ︎C-TYPE︎1000MM X 1000MM︎№ 5︎BERLIN https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Visions-in-Catastrophe-No-23-_-info Tue, 21 Mar 2023 20:52:58 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Visions-in-Catastrophe-No-23-_-info ٭ Visions in catastrophe; conflict and the creative mind, is 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 The dataset was constructed using the date and national affiliation of creation of the artworks, and how proximate in time the artwork was created since conflict – eg. Picasso’s eponymous Guernica was painted only a few months after the 1937 bombing of the city by German and Italian fascist forces. Using this method, each artwork is assigned a calculated value of 0, 1, 2, 3, etc. years creation date since conflict. The proximity of artistic output to conflict is coded using a colour refraction scale where white represents those works of art produced during the year of the conflict (0 years), while colour bands refracting away from white – yellow, orange, red – represent works of art created, one, two, and three years respectively post conflict. The further away from white, the greater the time separation of the date of creation from the conflict event. 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.    ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ 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. 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. 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. https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Objects-of-War-No-1 Fri, 10 Mar 2023 14:18:18 +0000 The Luxury of Protest https://theluxuryofprotest.com/Objects-of-War-No-1 OBJECTS OF WAR OMNIA Nº 1︎09.2019 ︎C-TYPE︎1000MM X 1011MM︎№ 7︎BERLIN