Organizational network mapping and analysis for NGOs, Istanbul Workshop, 2009

Creative Networking Workshop
Friday May 3rd 10AM – 4:30PM
New Museum, New York

To RSVP, send an email to artistworkshop@ideas-city.org with the workshop title.

One day workshop focusing on the design and understanding of complex networks through mapping and visual analysis. Starting from hand drawn simple graph diagrams, participants gradually build complex network models. Emphasis on network mapping, modeling, analysis, relational thinking, centrality, clustering analysis, and information design. Participants learn the most through observing and extracting networks from their area of interests, collaborative mapping, sketching, and discussing diagrams.

Graph Commons is used the workshops for visualization, group collaboration, and further sharing. Participants are required to bring laptop for Graph Commons mapping exercises.
http://graphcommons.com

Workshops Archive
http://teaching.burak-arikan.com/creative-networking

New Museum Announcement
http://www.ideas-city.org/view/artist-led-ideas-city-workshops

Artist Collector Network: Phase III is the third phase of an ongoing data collecting and mapping work that will be exhibited in the Datascape exhibition at Borusan Contemporary in Istanbul, 26 April – 1 September 2013. It is an exploratory network map of collectors and artists based on the relationship of being in an art collection. With the third phase of this work, I introduce an algorithmic prediction system, which presents future links between artists and collectors. That is the probability of a collector acquiring a work from a new artist and vice versa. With this phase artists as well are invited to participate with a list of their collectors, so the map includes data from both parties of an art work acquisition. Finally, the interactive map and its data are being prepared to be publicly accessible online.
Read More

Datascape
26 April – 1 September 2013
Borusan Contemporary Perili Köşk, Istanbul
Curator: Benjamin Weil
Artists: Burak Arıkan, Angela Bulloch, David Claerbout, Ryoji Ikeda, Michael Najjar, Enrique Radigales, Thomas Ruff, Karin Sander, Charles Sandison and Pablo Valbuena.

Artist Collector Network: Phase III
2013, Custom software, Touchscreen (46” LCD)

Artist Collector Network Phase III view from touchscreen installation.

Artist Collector Network Phase III closeup view showing a collector’s artists and prediction of future acquisitions in green.

Artist Collector Network Phase III closeup view showing artist Cindy Sherman’s collectors and prediction of future acquisitions in green.

Artist Collector Network Phase III closeup view showing artist Kutlug Ataman’s collectors and prediction of future acquisitions in green.

Artist Collector Network: Phase III

Zeynep Gökay Üstün

Artist Collector Network: Phase III is the third phase of an ongoing data collecting and mapping research project on the “nature” of the society of art. In the process of generating the data, each collector in the map was asked to convey a list of artists in their art collection. These lists of shared artists connect the collectors on the diagram, which organizes itself by running as a software simulation. The names naturally find their position on the screen through connecting forces, revealing the central actors, outliers, indirect links, and tight clusters.

Despite assumed, a map is not a mere representation or just a visualisation of data. As its definition clarifies, map as a container of data is a tool to read the topological depiction and make use of relationality at scale. With this work, the network map is an algorithmic interface, which is run by computational analysis or in other words by software. Therefore one can explore the network diagram by highlighting certain parts while filtering out others, analyze and understand the network structure and see what are the central actors, which of them are in the periphery, which actors have indirect relations, where the organic clusters are formed and where gaps between certain clusters exist, thus you explore invisible power relationships. Even in cases where big amount of data dictates a larger map than a visible plane, algorithmic interface provides access to its use. Therefore, a network map has less to do with a visual language than an algorithmic language.

In other words, a network map provides a more complete picture of the network than what each actor knows naturally, yet partially about the nature of the network structure. A subject be it an art dealer, collector, advisor, or an artist, may be knowledgeable about some of the relations existent within the network they are a part of, but a map with a multiplicity of data sources has the advantage of revealing a bigger picture of reality.

With the third phase of Artist Collector Network Arıkan introduces an algorithmic prediction system, which presents future links between artists and collectors. That is the probability of a collector acquiring a work from a new artist and vice versa. Tapping a name on the map highlights its direct connections and also the predictions in green color. Link prediction is another algorithmic use of a network diagram, where the data structure and its use reveals new information about power.

The first phase of Artist Collector Network is a part of the permanent collection of the Borusan Contemporary Museum in Perili Köşk. The second phase of the project included collectors and artists was affiliated with Maçka Art Gallery. The third phase of the project will be shown in Datascape Exhibition once again in the Borusan Contemporary Museum in Perili Köşk.

I will be giving a lecture at Architectural Association Istanbul Visiting School on my recent work in the context of creative and critical use of mapping and analysis.

Network as a Creative and Critical Medium
Monday 8 April 2013
ITU Taskisla 109
17:30
http://ai.aaschool.ac.uk/

Image from Monovacation.

Organizational network mapping and analysis for NGOs from France and Turkey, Istanbul Workshop, 2009

Network Mapping and Analysis Workshop
March 23rd from 11AM – 3PM
Learning Place, Former West
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

One day workshop focusing on the design and understanding of complex networks through mapping and visual analysis. Starting from hand drawn simple graph diagrams, participants gradually build complex network models. Emphasis on network mapping, modeling, analysis, relational thinking, centrality, clustering analysis, and information design. Participants learn the most through observing and extracting networks from their area of interests, collaborative mapping, sketching, and discussing diagrams.

This workshop will be held in relation to the ideas discussed in Mapping Relations Of Funding And Knowledge talk by Füsun Türetken and Burak Arıkan.

Graph Commons is used the workshops for visualization, group collaboration, and further sharing. Participants are required to bring laptop for Graph Commons mapping exercises.
http://graphcommons.com

View more on the workshop archive
http://teaching.burak-arikan.com/creative-networking

I will be talking today (21 March, 19:00) at Former West conference with Füsun Türetken at the Infrastructure session brought together by Irit Rogoff. The talk will focus on how funding and partnership relationships form institutional networks and constitute super-institutions, which has larger yet invisible power. More info and abstract below.

Watch live
http://www.formerwest.org/Front

Full Program
http://www.formerwest.org/DocumentsConstellationsProspects/Program

FORMER WEST: DOCUMENTS, CONSTELLATIONS, PROSPECTS
18 – 24 March 2013
Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin

Mapping Relations Of Funding And Knowledge

While established funding structures that promote architectural, artistic, and scholarly work often remain invisible to the public eye outside of sponsorship acknowledgements, they determine research and knowledge production within contemporary Berlin. Whether or not the resultant adaptation to funding criteria on the part of applicants affects the content of the research, it is clear that between individuals and funding institutions there is a struggle for authority. Independent agents are put in competitions, excluded or included depending on their relationships, and are required to be accountable to the authorities that be. Further, institutions are connected to each other through a variety of interests from sponsorship relations to shared board members to social and professional relationships, all of which contribute to an organization’s authority, as well as constitute a larger network of institutions that is itself a super-institution. Relationships that form super-institutions, thus their extra-authority, can be mapped as network diagrams in order to problematize the entanglement of knowledge and economic power structures. On a network map, actors naturally find their position through connecting forces, revealing the central actors, indirect links, organic clusters, structural holes, and outliers. During this workshop (in the context of a closed session with students from Learning Place) and panel we view how clusters of institutions on a map show the super-institutions that have high-power concentrations in neoliberal societies.

Sketch for Neoliberalism(s), 2013

Creative Networking Workshop
March 17th from 11AM – 6PM
Sharjah Art Museum, 1st Floor, Wing B
Sharjah Biennial

One day workshop focusing on the design and understanding of complex networks through mapping and visual analysis. Starting from hand drawn simple graph diagrams, participants gradually build complex network models. Emphasis on network mapping, modeling, analysis, relational thinking, centrality, clustering analysis, and information design. Participants learn the most through observing and extracting networks from their area of interests, collaborative mapping, sketching, and discussing diagrams.

Graph Commons is used the workshops for visualization, group collaboration, and further sharing. Participants are required to bring laptop for Graph Commons mapping exercises.
http://graphcommons.com

Limited to 20 participants.

Learn more about the past workshops archived on this page.
http://teaching.burak-arikan.com/creative-networking

Workshop announcement at 11th Sharjah Biennial
http://www.sharjahart.org/exhibitions-events/current-upcoming-events/burak-arikan-workshop

I will be giving a talk at the March Meeting, 11th Sharjah Biennial.

Data, Networks And Art: Connectivity and Crisis in the Context of 21st Century Technology
Saturday March 16, 2013
3:30pm

Full March Meeting program
http://www.sharjahart.org/march-meeting/march-meeting-2013/welcome

Neoliberalism(s) is a software-questionnaire-mapping work exhibited in 11th Sharjah Biennial, 13 March – 13 May 2013. It aims to grasp the diverse perceptions of expatriates living in UAE about the fierce nature of the neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism(s)
2013, Custom software, touchscreen (42” LCD screen), digital print (180×120 cm)

“Almost everybody who lives in Dubai also lives somewhere else” says Rem Koolhaas in the second Al Manakh, a study of the Gulf region. The expatriates in UAE experience different geographies, weathers, languages and above all different social worlds in their home and host town.Yet, however different the cities they live in, they share common ground especially in respect to the globally dominant economic policies and the market logic. In other words, UAE is composed of subjects exposed to diverse neoliberal fantasies rendering the emirates one of the few regions where one find such relational bridges between different neoliberalisms.

Neoliberalism(s) is a software-questionnaire-mapping system aims to capture the relationships between expatriates’ subjective encounters with neoliberalism in UAE and in their hometown. It utilizes the commonly used survey interaction method, but through a new satire interface that is available both online and onsite. The online questionnaire application has taken a snowball route and propagated on participants’ social relationships virally, targeting an audience whose profile is identified via social media, Facebook, Twitter etc. The questionnaire is available in the exhibition through a touchscreen application. Both online and onsite responses to the questions are gathered in real-time on a central database which drives the network map. Questions demand both factual and imaginary reactions by design. The generated data is analyzed and mapped into network diagrams, which show similarities and differences of aspects of particular neoliberalisms of the world.

Print: Subjective network map of countries and neoliberal concepts generated by the artist himself  through taking the survey for all the countries.

Touch-screen: Questionnaire and collective map, generated in real-time by the participants’ responses online and onsite.

Monovacation is in 11th Sharjah Biennial, 13 March – 13 May 2013.

Monovacation
2013, custom software, projection (300×120 cm), digital print (180×120 cm), video (42 inch LCD screen)

Monovacation cordially invites you to “the vacation” of vacations… The official tourism commercials of countries in competition with each other have been selected and each film has been divided into the possible tiniest clips. The clips, 3-4 sec long by nature have been coded with tags. Through a network diagram which run as a software simulation, these tags are connected to each other via shared clips have found their positions on the map. Then, a new sequence have been generated through a traversal in the network map, jumping from one node to the closest, following the path of the most central tags. Shores from Egypt to Portugal, woman from Israel to India, mythological figures from Thailand to Turkey here comes an extracted fantasy of “vacation”…text continues below

It is a three part installation:

Projection: Official tourism commercials of countries which are competitors of each other, used as data and presented in grid form (excerpt)

Digital Print: Network map of tags created by content analysis of each commercial, where blue nodes represents the traversal paths used for editing the new video

Video: Generic video of a vacation edited with the analysis of the network map of concepts and clips (excerpt)

Monovacation


Zeynep Gökay Üstün

Monovacation cordially invites you to “the vacation” of vacations… The official tourism commercials of countries in competition with each other have been selected and each film has been divided into the possible tiniest clips. The clips, 3-4 sec long by nature have been coded with tags. Through a network diagram, which run as a software simulation, these tags are connected to each other via shared clips and have found their positions on the map. Then, a new sequence have been generated through a traversal in the network map, jumping from one node to the closest, following the path of the most central tags. Shores from Egypt to Portugal, hospitality from Australia to Ukraine, nature from Spain to New Zealand, woman from Israel to India, mythological figures from Thailand to Turkey here comes an extracted fantasy of “vacation”…

Tourism is a vicious sphere of competition in the world economy. This situation forces the countries possessing touristic values to act like corporations. The 2012-2013 Tourism Report of the World Economic Forum evaluates and ranks 144 countries and assumes a position within the global context. The countries in competition take the pulse of each other and use every trick in the book to impress the visitors; huge investments, airport constructions, chain hotels, loyalty programs, business world, and many other attractions as such. Turkey, in this context is one of the countries that attract tourists. Among its competitors there are countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Egypt, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Morocco, Thailand, China, UAE, Taiwan and India. 144 countries trying to captivate the tourists and ruthless competition… Monovacation uses 20 official tourism TV commercials randomly selected out of these 144 countries as its material.

The image appears in the commercial videos of the countries with tourism value. Each film hails another subjectivity, from place to place employs the same imagery and from time to time idiosyncratic elements. The representative images in visuals do not only show the countries assets also builds an ideal understanding of vacation for the subjects. While they are defining a subjective position for the tourist, they also point to all sorts of “should’s” from how and with whom we should have fun, how we should rest, to which view or historical structure we should admire. While the efforts to shape the vacation through the subjectivity of the tourist render these movies almost the same, the trademark geographical and cultural values seem to be wrapped up and marketed. The countries are being stripped off all other qualities and are being brought to a common ground. These commercials, which usually last one to three minutes summarize the countries real quick and try to catch attention and on the other hand give a promise to satisfy all the vacation needs of the tourist, so they collaboratively construct a fantasy of vacation.

Splitting these commercial films into the tiniest pieces and having another gaze at each separated clip channels us into a much convenient path than breaking the routine, instead it reinforces the routine and make it much apparent. Thus, positioning the tags post-coded and attached to each clip in a network map enables one to read this construct of vacation. Yet above all, such a map allows one to discover the most central concepts and representations and to invent a generic vacation commercial. A fantasy which overrules other fantasies of travelling, a fantasy where the steps of discovering a new place are predetermined and a fantasy where the patterns are being reproduced… Monovacation, this construct that we know is generic, forms an extracted fantasy of travelling not to the countries but to the travel itself.

In this context Monovacation is a work composed of three pieces: (1) Official tourism commercials of Turkey and its competitors on a grid, (2) Network map of representation similarity generated by the content analysis of the tourism commercials, (3) Generic film reedited with network analysis.

This work was prepared for the purpose of VitrA Contemporary Architecture Series: Please Do Not Disturb exhibition realized in 2013.

“Please do not disturb”
VitrA Contemporary Architecture Series Presents

Istanbul Modern, February 7th – April 7th 2013

Curator: Ertuğ Uçar
Coordinator: Pelin Derviş
Artists: Burak Arikan, Kerem Ozan Bayraktar, Nermin Er, Meriç Kara, Metehan Özcan

Mono-vacation

Mono-vacation cordially invites you to “the vacation” of vacations… The official tourism commercials of countries in competition with each other have been selected and each film has been divided into the possible tiniest clips. The clips, 3-4 sec long by nature have been coded with tags. Through a network diagram which run as a software simulation, these tags are connected to each other via shared clips have found their positions on the map. Then, a new sequence have been generated through a traversal in the network map, jumping from one node to the closest, following the path of the most central tags. Shores from Egypt to Portugal, woman from Israel to India, mythological figures from Thailand to Turkey here comes an extracted fantasy of “vacation”… text continues below

It is a three part installation:

Projection: Official tourism commercials of countries which are competitors of each other (excerpt)

Digital Print: Network map of representation similarity generated by the content analysis of the tourism commercials (blue nodes represents the traversal paths used for editing the new film)

Video: Generic film reedited with network analysis. (excerpt)

Monovacation


Zeynep Gökay Üstün

Monovacation cordially invites you to “the vacation” of vacations… The official tourism commercials of countries in competition with each other have been selected and each film has been divided into the possible tiniest clips. The clips, 3-4 sec long by nature have been coded with tags. Through a network diagram, which run as a software simulation, these tags are connected to each other via shared clips and have found their positions on the map. Then, a new sequence have been generated through a traversal in the network map, jumping from one node to the closest, following the path of the most central tags. Shores from Egypt to Portugal, hospitality from Australia to Ukraine, nature from Spain to New Zealand, woman from Israel to India, mythological figures from Thailand to Turkey here comes an extracted fantasy of “vacation”…

Tourism is a vicious sphere of competition in the world economy. This situation forces the countries possessing touristic values to act like corporations. The 2012-2013 Tourism Report of the World Economic Forum evaluates and ranks 144 countries and assumes a position within the global context. The countries in competition take the pulse of each other and use every trick in the book to impress the visitors; huge investments, airport constructions, chain hotels, loyalty programs, business world, and many other attractions as such. Turkey, in this context is one of the countries that attract tourists. Among its competitors there are countries such as France, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Malta, Egypt, Portugal, Yugoslavia, Morocco, Thailand, China, UAE, Taiwan and India. 144 countries trying to captivate the tourists and ruthless competition… Monovacation uses 20 official tourism TV commercials randomly selected out of these 144 countries as its material.

The image appears in the commercial videos of the countries with tourism value. Each film hails another subjectivity, from place to place employs the same imagery and from time to time idiosyncratic elements. The representative images in visuals do not only show the countries assets also builds an ideal understanding of vacation for the subjects. While they are defining a subjective position for the tourist, they also point to all sorts of “should’s” from how and with whom we should have fun, how we should rest, to which view or historical structure we should admire. While the efforts to shape the vacation through the subjectivity of the tourist render these movies almost the same, the trademark geographical and cultural values seem to be wrapped up and marketed. The countries are being stripped off all other qualities and are being brought to a common ground. These commercials, which usually last one to three minutes summarize the countries real quick and try to catch attention and on the other hand give a promise to satisfy all the vacation needs of the tourist, so they collaboratively construct a fantasy of vacation.

Splitting these commercial films into the tiniest pieces and having another gaze at each separated clip channels us into a much convenient path than breaking the routine, instead it reinforces the routine and make it much apparent. Thus, positioning the tags post-coded and attached to each clip in a network map enables one to read this construct of vacation. Yet above all, such a map allows one to discover the most central concepts and representations and to invent a generic vacation commercial. A fantasy which overrules other fantasies of travelling, a fantasy where the steps of discovering a new place are predetermined and a fantasy where the patterns are being reproduced… Monovacation, this construct that we know is generic, forms an extracted fantasy of travelling not to the countries but to the travel itself.

In this context Monovacation is a work composed of three pieces: (1) Official tourism commercials of Turkey and its competitors on a grid, (2) Network map of representation similarity generated by the content analysis of the tourism commercials, (3) Generic film reedited with network analysis.