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For me, minimal is about what design elements and other details you decide to exclude, at a systems level. I think designs can be dense but minimal. e.g. check

For me, minimal is about what design elements and other details you decide to exclude, at a systems level. I think designs can be dense but minimal. e.g. check out the work of Ryoji Ikeda - information density stripped down to the bare essentials.

yoz-y 5y ago
Isn't it kind of hard to talk about information density when it comes to art?
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  Very much not.
  - throwanem 5y ago
    Isn't it? I think it depends on the art. You can learn a lot about wasps from the pictures I take of them, but the giant triptych of a hunting P. metricus forager that spans one wall of my living room doesn't convey the same meaning that a series of illustrations in an entomology textbook would.
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      That depends on what you mean by information and density. There's a concept of perceptual qualia-density which has nothing to do with semantic density in the linguistic/narrative sense.
      - throwanem 5y ago
        I'm very much out of my depth in the formal language of academic philosophy, but if I'm understanding correctly, the concept you describe refers roughly to the density and - I guess completeness? - of information, contained in a given signification, about the perception which elicited the act of signification from whoever performed it. That perception isn't assumed to be accurate, but that's beside the point, which is to measure the fidelity of signification to perception. (I think. I'm working pretty much off Isaac's 2010 dissertation, and can't really say how well that work captures the subject or how well my understanding captures that work.) In that sense, I think my photos and the textbook illustrations must be even more different than I already considered them to be. The illustrations deliberately don't capture the qualia that elicited them; they are intentionally abstract, sacrificing most detail in order by contrast to highlight the specific aspects considered most useful to the student of whatever specific topic they illustrate. They're information-dense in that sense, but not in the one under discussion here. My photos [1] are just the opposite; not only are they not abstracted, I've put a fair amount of work into editing them - cropping, white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpening, fine HSL adjustment per-channel - precisely with the intent that they should represent as accurately as possible, not the assorted energies of photons which impinged on the camera's sensor and were sampled over the course of 4ms or however long, but what I saw as I watched a hunting animal and her prey through a machine which both magnified them considerably and (by dint of a rubber eye cup) blocked out all other light. Which, if I understand the philosophical concept correctly, makes the photos in that sense by far the richer in informational content of the two examples. It might, anyway. There is a good deal that those photos don't capture, like the bright heat of the blazing June day on which I took them - the darkness of the backgrounds is an artifact of technique, rather than a true representation of the scene. Or, beyond that, the mix of lingering fear and burgeoning fascination I felt as I took the shots, with the lens objective six inches from the subjects, and their sisters and fellow foragers buzzing about my head and not minding me at all - it was in fact during the taking of these shots that I lost my previously lively fear of wasps, this change occasioned in part by the camera itself and the sense of emotional distance its presentation of images can impose upon its user. In this case, it was that distance - that sense that, whatever I saw through the machine, it did not involve me as it would if seen with bare eyes - that enabled me to approach in spite of fear, eventually close enough to take these shots and in so doing first recognize the beauty both of the hunting animals themselves, and of the singleminded, innocent ruthlessness with which they stalk, pursue, capture, and dispose of prey. When after a while I noticed I was in the middle of a small eccentric cloud of paper wasps, none of whom gave any sign even of noticing my presence save as a static obstacle to be avoided in flight, the last of my fear of wasps evaporated, and I haven't felt it again since. I think that more than anything else was what moved me to make of those raw images what I have, but I don't know how much that experience constitutes of their informational content, or how much that determination is even mine to make. [1] https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus
- koolhaas 5y ago
  Do you mind elaborating?
  - yoz-y 5y ago
    Sure. I think that (especially modern) art, can have as much meaning as the observer wants it to have. The artist may have some initial thought about what idea they want to express, but once their work is out there, they lose the control over the meaning of it. Ryoji Ikeda arguably uses "information" in his art pieces, but it's not like it is presented in a useful manner.
    - koolhaas 5y ago
      Ok, I now see where you were going with your original question. The point you're making is interpreting art is subjective and information density is more of a practical concern about utility, and the two are at odds. The point I was making was something can be dense but minimal, because to me, minimal is "systems" question. I chose an artist as an example, but perhaps that complicates the point because the artist's primary concern is not utility. >Ikeda arguably uses "information" in his art pieces, but it's not like it is presented in a useful manner Here's where interpreting Ikeda gets kinda fun. By the way, he very intentionally does not care about meaning. He wants us to decide. Most of his work is driven by real data sets, like human genome, CERN super collider data, digits of mathematical constants, every part from a Honda Civic, position of stars in the universe. For non-experts, I think he uncovers the vastness of many systems that are difficult to visualize, allowing people to "experience" the efforts behind, e.g. encoding the human genome. Of course, it's not useful in the sense of a tool or utility, but you might walk away with a new perspective on science, engineering, mathematics, that before was totally opaque to most people.
uxcolumbo 5y ago
Just had a look at the site - https://www.ryojiikeda.com/ https://www.ryojiikeda.com/ Good luck reading any of that. Setting your font size to 9px or whatever is not how you increase information density. That's just bad usability.
- koolhaas 5y ago
  Not his website, his artwork. Just search YouTube.

yoz-y 5y ago

Isn't it kind of hard to talk about information density when it comes to art?

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Very much not.
- throwanem 5y ago
  Isn't it? I think it depends on the art. You can learn a lot about wasps from the pictures I take of them, but the giant triptych of a hunting P. metricus forager that spans one wall of my living room doesn't convey the same meaning that a series of illustrations in an entomology textbook would.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    That depends on what you mean by information and density. There's a concept of perceptual qualia-density which has nothing to do with semantic density in the linguistic/narrative sense.
    - throwanem 5y ago
      I'm very much out of my depth in the formal language of academic philosophy, but if I'm understanding correctly, the concept you describe refers roughly to the density and - I guess completeness? - of information, contained in a given signification, about the perception which elicited the act of signification from whoever performed it. That perception isn't assumed to be accurate, but that's beside the point, which is to measure the fidelity of signification to perception. (I think. I'm working pretty much off Isaac's 2010 dissertation, and can't really say how well that work captures the subject or how well my understanding captures that work.) In that sense, I think my photos and the textbook illustrations must be even more different than I already considered them to be. The illustrations deliberately don't capture the qualia that elicited them; they are intentionally abstract, sacrificing most detail in order by contrast to highlight the specific aspects considered most useful to the student of whatever specific topic they illustrate. They're information-dense in that sense, but not in the one under discussion here. My photos [1] are just the opposite; not only are they not abstracted, I've put a fair amount of work into editing them - cropping, white balance, contrast, saturation, sharpening, fine HSL adjustment per-channel - precisely with the intent that they should represent as accurately as possible, not the assorted energies of photons which impinged on the camera's sensor and were sampled over the course of 4ms or however long, but what I saw as I watched a hunting animal and her prey through a machine which both magnified them considerably and (by dint of a rubber eye cup) blocked out all other light. Which, if I understand the philosophical concept correctly, makes the photos in that sense by far the richer in informational content of the two examples. It might, anyway. There is a good deal that those photos don't capture, like the bright heat of the blazing June day on which I took them - the darkness of the backgrounds is an artifact of technique, rather than a true representation of the scene. Or, beyond that, the mix of lingering fear and burgeoning fascination I felt as I took the shots, with the lens objective six inches from the subjects, and their sisters and fellow foragers buzzing about my head and not minding me at all - it was in fact during the taking of these shots that I lost my previously lively fear of wasps, this change occasioned in part by the camera itself and the sense of emotional distance its presentation of images can impose upon its user. In this case, it was that distance - that sense that, whatever I saw through the machine, it did not involve me as it would if seen with bare eyes - that enabled me to approach in spite of fear, eventually close enough to take these shots and in so doing first recognize the beauty both of the hunting animals themselves, and of the singleminded, innocent ruthlessness with which they stalk, pursue, capture, and dispose of prey. When after a while I noticed I was in the middle of a small eccentric cloud of paper wasps, none of whom gave any sign even of noticing my presence save as a static obstacle to be avoided in flight, the last of my fear of wasps evaporated, and I haven't felt it again since. I think that more than anything else was what moved me to make of those raw images what I have, but I don't know how much that experience constitutes of their informational content, or how much that determination is even mine to make. [1] https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus https://aaron-m.com/2019/07/08/polistes-metricus
koolhaas 5y ago
Do you mind elaborating?
- yoz-y 5y ago
  Sure. I think that (especially modern) art, can have as much meaning as the observer wants it to have. The artist may have some initial thought about what idea they want to express, but once their work is out there, they lose the control over the meaning of it. Ryoji Ikeda arguably uses "information" in his art pieces, but it's not like it is presented in a useful manner.
  - koolhaas 5y ago
    Ok, I now see where you were going with your original question. The point you're making is interpreting art is subjective and information density is more of a practical concern about utility, and the two are at odds. The point I was making was something can be dense but minimal, because to me, minimal is "systems" question. I chose an artist as an example, but perhaps that complicates the point because the artist's primary concern is not utility. >Ikeda arguably uses "information" in his art pieces, but it's not like it is presented in a useful manner Here's where interpreting Ikeda gets kinda fun. By the way, he very intentionally does not care about meaning. He wants us to decide. Most of his work is driven by real data sets, like human genome, CERN super collider data, digits of mathematical constants, every part from a Honda Civic, position of stars in the universe. For non-experts, I think he uncovers the vastness of many systems that are difficult to visualize, allowing people to "experience" the efforts behind, e.g. encoding the human genome. Of course, it's not useful in the sense of a tool or utility, but you might walk away with a new perspective on science, engineering, mathematics, that before was totally opaque to most people.

uxcolumbo 5y ago

Just had a look at the site - https://www.ryojiikeda.com/ https://www.ryojiikeda.com/ Good luck reading any of that. Setting your font size to 9px or whatever is not how you increase information density. That's just bad usability.

koolhaas 5y ago
Not his website, his artwork. Just search YouTube.