Dancing Together: the Fluidification of the Modern Mind
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A pretty theoretical (and slightly eccentric) conference I gave at the Digital Methods Initiative 2016 Summer School in Amsterdam
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Dancing Together: the Fluidification of the Modern Mind
- 1. Dancing Together the Fluidification of the Modern Mind Tommaso Venturini Lecturer, Digital Humanities Dept. King's College London Chercheur affilié, médialab Sciences Po Paris tommaso.venturini@kcl.ac.uk
- 2. The way we teach dancing is not the way we dance
- 3. Historians cared about sequence and order. Sociologist didn’t. Why? (p. 4) This grew out of my idea that the social process was itself narratively organised. I was insistent that this narrative organisation to be real; that it, that it be inherent in the social process itself and nor merely in our talking about that process (p. 289) Abbott, A. (2001) Time Matters Chicago: University Press. 1. Talking about time
- 4. Anyone who ventures a projection, or imagines how a social dynamic—an epidemic, war, or migration—would unfold is running some model. But typically, it is an implicit model in which the assumptions are hidden, their internal consistency is untested, their logical consequences are unknown, and their relation to data is unknown... In explicit models, assumptions are laid out in detail, so we can study exactly what they entail. On these assumptions, this sort of thing happens. When you alter the assumptions that is what happens. Epstein, J. M. (2008). Why model? Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulations, 11(4), 2. Talking about models
- 5. http://www.joelhunterphd.com/folktale- structure-key-success-harry-potter- series a story VS the model of a story Vladimir Propp, 1928 Morphology of the Folktale
- 6. This conference will be about 1. The temporal dynamics of collective phenomena 2. The modeling of the such dynamics What are we talking about
- 7. Three types of social models Variation Circulation Interaction Examples Economic and ecologic equilibria Epidemics and routing Agent-based models Model Relations defined by a set of equations, computed recursively and in parallel until an equilibrium is reached. Flow of entities moving through a grid of connections (generally in the form of a complex network). Multitude of local exchanges among calculating agents (evolution cannot be analytically computed). Change Nothing new can be introduced or created and components cannot acquire new properties or alter associations. The only type of change admitted is the increase or decrease of quantities. Such systems admit existence of mobile components but both the shape of the network and the rules coordinating the movements are fixed from the beginning. The dynamism of these systems derives from a restricted and constant set of interaction rules. Transformation does not concerns the agents’ nature or the system’s architecture.
- 8. An example of agent based model Schelling, T. (1971). Dynamic Models of Segregation. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1 (May), 143–186
- 9. An example of agent based model Schelling, T. (1971). Dynamic Models of Segregation. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 1 (May), 143–186 1. Opposition between individual strategies and collective results 2. Social existence framed as a relation between local/individual interactions & global/collective structures
- 10. The micro/macro framing Thomas Hobbes, 1651 The Leviathan
- 11. The ant framing Thomas Hobbes, 1651 The Leviathan Merian & Jonston, 1718 Folio Ants, Clony, Nest, Insects
- 12. Another example of agent based model Khuong et al. (2016). Stigmergic construction and topochemical
- 13. The colony is full of patterns and regularities and balanced proportions among different activities, with maintenance and repair and exploration and even mobilization for emergencies. But no individual ant knows whether there are too few or too many ants exploring for food or rebuilding after a thunderstorm or helping to carry in the carcass of a beetle. Each ant lives in its own little world, responding to the other ants in its immediate environment and responding to signals of which it does not know the origin. Why the system works as it does, and as effectively as it does, is a dynamic problem of social and genetic evolution. micromotives / macrobehaviours Schelling, T. C. (1978) Micromotives and Macrobehaviours Norton & Company
- 14. A layered collective life
- 15. A spatial framing of collective change Conceptually • Binary, micro and macro attractors vacuums all graduations of speed between them. • Rigid, entities cannot change tempo (they are either movable actors or fixed structures). • Topological, implicit assumption that local changes faster than global. Methodologically • Simpler dynamics where change is confined to local circuits and stability to global structures. • Artificial simulations where actors and structures can be separated by construction. Disadvantages of misusing the micro/macro framing
- 17. Revolutions or situations of structural change, e.g. • moments in which a new species transforms an ecological environment (Levins, 1968; Gordon, 2011); • an innovation ‘creatively destroy’ an industrial market (Schumpeter, 1976); • a compromise is proposed to defuse with a social crisis (Callon, Lascoumes & Barthe, 2009). Force our attention to shift • from the distinction between local interactions and global structures • to the interaction between things changing quickly and things changing slowly A temporal framing of collective change
- 18. All enquiry in the field of the social sciences involves the abstraction, generalisation and formalisation that are associated with many forms of tabular presentation... Since the table is essentially a graphic (and frequently a literate device), its fixed two dimensional character may well simplify the reality of oral communication beyond reasonable recognition, and hence decrease rather than increase understanding (p. 52, 53) One of the features of the graphic mode is the tendency to arrange terms in (linear) rows and (hierarchical) columns in such a way that each item is allocated a single position, where it stands in a definite, permanent, and unambiguous relationship to the others (p. 68) The result is often to freeze a contextual statement into a system of permanent oppositions, an outcome that may simplify reality for the observes but often at the expense of a real understanding of the actor’s frame of reference. And to shift frames of reference and regard such tables as models of the camshaft behind the jigsaw is to mistake metaphor for mechanism (p. 73) Jack Goody,(1977). The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: University Press.
- 19. Tables Luc Boltanski (1973). L’espace positionnel : multiplicité des positions institutionnelles et habitus de classe. Revue Française de Sociologie, 14(1)
- 20. Leonhard Euler, 1736 Solutio problematis ad geometriam situs pertinentis from a circulation network to positions table
- 21. Paradoxically (for a mode of study so intently focused upon processuality), relational sociology has the greatest difficulty in analyzing, not the structural features of static networks, whether these be cultural, social structural, or social psychological, but rather, the dynamic processes that transform those matrices of transactions in some fashion. Even studies of “processes-in-relations” too often privilege spatiality (or topological location) over temporality and narrative unfolding (p. 305). Mustafa Emirbayer (1997). Manifesto for a Relational Sociology American Journal of Sociology, 103(2), 281–317 A topological approach to modeling change
- 22. And back to movement gephi.org
- 23. Studying change in Wikipedia Viegas, F. B., Wattenberg, M., Kriss, J., & Van Ham, F. (2007). Talk before you type: Coordination in Wikipedia. In 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences http://hint.fm/projects/historyflow
- 24. Studying change in Wikipedia Borra E., Weltevrede E., Ciuccarelli P., Kaltenbrunner A. ... Venturini T. (2015) Societal Controversies in Wikipedia Articles. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems www.contropedia.net/demo
- 25. Studying change in French parliament www.lafabriquedelaloi.fr
- 26. The origin of The Origin of Species https://fathom.info/traces/
- 29. One Flat Thing, reproduced 1. Shifts the attention • away from the distinction between local interaction and global structures (the micro/macro divide)... • ... to the processes of slowing down and speeding up; . 2. Captures • Repetition and variation Gabriel Tarde, Les lois de l'imitation, 1890 Gilles Deleuze, Difference and repetition, 1968 • Sequence (before and after) and coordination (at the same time) 3. Visualizes change by • Augmentation instead of aggregation • View change by changing views
Notes de l'éditeur
- 1 How many of you can dance? How many of you can really dance?
- Dancing is often taught as an ensemble of rules that constraints the movement Yet such rules are only a simplification. While very convenient in teaching how to dance, no one would seriously say that they provide an accurate description of what dancing is (not for ballroom dancing and even less so for modern ballet). Those who dance professionally do not rely so much on rules as on a complex systems of cues that allows the dancing partners to coordinate the movement and achieve a harmonious collective result. The way we teach dancing is not the way in which we dance and even less so the way in complex choreographies are organized In this conference, I will argue that this difference is a good metaphor of the current state of sociological investigation of collective dynamics: the way we analyze collective change is profoundly different from the way in which collective change is handled by social actors themselves. This is, I am aware of it, a very bold (pompous even) claim and should be qualified
- The first qualification is that this conference will concern specifically the temporal aspects of social phenomena. Collective life can, of course be studied under many different angles. Time is only one of them – and it is not always the most important. However, I will argue with Andrew Abbott (and many others) that time is a dimension that is often forgotten by social analysis.
- And here comes the second qualification, because I don’t think that it is fair to say social sciences have too often forgotten time. On the contrary, I would say, social sciences have been pretty good at narrating collective dynamics. What they have rather lack are specific effort to model social change. By modelling I refer to an explicit and formalized description (as opposed to a more qualitative report).
- A story VS the model of a story
- In this conference therefore I will specifically talk about. I know this sounds terribly boring but I believe that it is from this reflection that the new generation of digital methods (the one that we will use in the summer school of 2036) will come from… … and I also promise that I will show a lot of cool videos.
- But first, more boring stuff. Let me briefly introduce you to the 3 main types of social models. What do you think they have in common? What I will argument is that the one thing that these very different type of models has in common is that they all constrain time in a topological framing.
- To explain what I mean, let me give you the example of one of the most famous agent based model. The model of urban segregation introduced in 1971 by Nobel Prize winner, Thomas Schelling. 1 Schelling's model residential segregation.mp4
- Two things should be understood about this model: The counter-intuitive relation between individual strategies (the fact that everyone would desire to live in a multi-ethnic neighborhood) and collective results (the very clear-cut segregation obtained at the equilibrium). The way in which the whole question of social existence is framed as a relation between local/individual interactions and global/collective structures
- This framing is often referred to as the micro/macro framing.
- and the metaphor that is recurrently used is that of ants and ants’ nest Ants are presented as social insects capable of building large and complex global structures (such as their nest) while processing information only at a local scale (through the chemical pheromones that they leave and encounters).
- Here is another example of agent-based model in which the global construction on the nest is obtained through local rules of interaction. 2 Theraulaz Ants.mov
- Thomas Schelling himself use this metaphor in a very explicit way in his famous book on “micromotives and macrobehaviours).
- This strategy has then been taken up by the greatest majority of modelling efforts and though it is undeniably efficient, it is has the disadvantage of constraining time in a topological framing. By “topological” here I do not mean “geographical”. I specifically refer to the projection of collective phenomena on micro-interactions and macro-structures, conceived spatially as layers or levels.
- To be sure, the micro/macro framing has many advantages. In collective life, not everything changes at the same time and it is often convenient to take some things as settled, in order to highlight faster transformations. This simplification, however, is only useful as long as we use it for what it is: precisely a simplification that we employ (for the sake of simplicity) to disregard (momentarily) some of the slower changes. But convenient as it is the micro/macro framing should never be reified, because its reification has several disadvantages both from a conceptual and a methodological point of view.
- When reified the micro/macro divide traps our understanding of social phenomena in a completely artificial framing, in which actors move against a static background, like fishes in a plastic aquarium. The oceans of collective life are much richer and more interesting. 3 BBC Blue Planet Ep6 Coral CUT.mp4
- Through the expedient of time-lapse (the acceleration speed at which he shows us the image of the reef), the great British documentarist David Attenborough remind us that the corals are are not a static background for the interactions of the fishes, they not minerals or plant, but animals that move, hunt and fight. The same is true for social institutions: they are not given once and for all. They change and sometime they can change as quickly as the interactions that they host. And as soon as we consider the situation of structural change where old institutions dissolve and new arrangements crystallize, the micro-macro become untenable and we are forced to shift our attention - from the distinction between local interactions and global structures - to the interaction between things changing quickly and things changing slowly
- To understand more clearly the topological nature of the micro/macro framing and the specific way in which it translates temporal dynamics, it is interesting to consider where this framing comes from. This question has been thoroughly investigated by Jack Goody, who in his famous book “The Domestication of the Savage Mind” described the way in which the use of the table has transformed our way of understanding collective life. But also the way in which collective life itself is organized.
- Tables are intellectual technologies whose very aim is to provide a systematic and simplified understanding of different phenomena through a spatial arrangement. Here you see a sundial one of the earliest techniques for turning space into space. And here you see an example of how tables are used in social sciences to classify individuals into categories. The example is take from an article of Luc Boltansky and I’ve chosen in because through the separation between rows (corresponding to the individuals) and columns (corresponding to social fields) it clearly illustrates the micro/macro framing that I described above.
- And such tendency to turn time into space, dynamics into arrangement, is common to many other ways of formalizing collective change. Think, for example, at the paper who founded graph mathematics and the way in which Euler translated a question of circulation and routing (“how to walk through all the neighborhoods of the city of Konigsberg without ever crossing the same bridge twice) into a table of connection.
- To be sure, this translation has been extremely fertile, but it also had the disadvantage to privilege space over type. As lamented by Mustafa Emirbayer.
- In the next days I will give two tutorials of Gephi a tool to visualize and analyze networks developed in the médialab of Sciences Po, where I used to work. In a decade, this tool has replaced all previous software for network analysis. There are different reasons for this, but one (I believe) is its superior graphical interface. And, in particular the way, in which it shows force-vector spatialisation (instead of just showing its results as most all pieces of software do)
- Here is another example of a very influent project that focused directly on time.
- This project inspired another project to which I contributed and that has been spearheaded by Eric Borra and Esther Weltevrede here at the Digital Methods Initiative
- And here is a similar project that we developed at the médialab on the amendments of French laws.
- And finally a project by Ben Fry to visualize the different versions of Charles Darwin’s book on “The Origin of Species”.
- What these three projects have in common is their effort to produce a sort of visual versioning of collective phenomena. And what is interesting about this versioning approach is that it begins to distance itself from the traditional logic of the micro/macro divide. But these three projects still have significant limitations: In the fact that they are still incapable to handle radical structural change (ex. when laws a passed that change the way in which laws are passed) In the fact that they still heavily rely on topological visualization (but see the experimental visualization of the network of amendments co-signature)
- But I have found a project that goes even further in respecting the temporal nature of collective phenomena, while subjecting them to a formal description For (remember!) our problem is to model collective change, not just narrate it. It’s a project from Ohio State University and it aims at formalizing a very beautiful (and complex) choreography by William Forsythe, entitled “One Flat Thing, reproduced”
- This incredible project (which is much richer than what I have show) illustrates three feature of what could be a collective modeling assuming a temporal instead of topological framing.