Monstrosity and Iconicity in the Model and the Medium. #GraphPoem and the Normalization of Natural Philosophy
(2023) Zoomland. Exploring Scale in Digital History and Humanities — submitted
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- Authors
Tanasescu, Chris 
- et. al.
- Abstract
- This paper contends that monstrosity and iconicity are fundamental features of computational approaches to text corpora and networks in digital space. As argued in previous publications, natural language processing (NLP) combined with network analysis represents a most effective way to understand and computationally chart text corpora in general and literary or philosophical ones in particular. The appropriate mathematical model for such corpora and investigations is the multilayer network, whose complexity and dimensionality raise challenging issues relate to processing, operability, and comprehensibility. We posit therefore that the most suitable theoretical framework is represented by complexity and graph theory applications with an emphasis on representative concepts like monstrosity and iconicity that involve aspects of both all-engulfing magnitude and detailed specificity. The cases in point are, first, the Graph Poem project (UCLouvain and UOttawa), and, second, Normalization of Natural Philosophy (U of Groningen). For the former, the network theory applications in poetry and the appropriation of recent advancements in performance theory, cartography, and photography highlight the genre’s relevance to issues such as control (in societies of control) and resistance, digital space charting, and the digital medium’s multilayered architectures. For the latter, multilingual corpus network analysis as well as working with complex data related to early modern continental philosophy involving correlated text, social, and semantic networks open new avenues for both philosophical and transdisciplinary computational research while exploring the model-relevant monstrosity of such an approach. Examples of networked textuality visualization and analysis and experiments in algorithmic corpus assemblage and expansion as part of the Graph Poem will illustrate then the monstrosity of both control and poetic subversion and foreground digital writing as chaosphere. The argument will thus reach an updated notion of networked corpus analysis and networked writing as digital iconization. The latter is then also examined and detailed as relevant to the complex and ontologically heterogeneous data conglomerates informing Normalization of Natural Philosophy. The discussion will consequently review the concept of monstrosity in light of the recent contributions to monster and literary studies, digital humanities, and remix studies, and that of iconicity in a writing studies, performance studies, and, again, remix-relevant framework. While monstrosity is generally seen as a Frankenstein of the humanities embodying DH and thus referring mainly to issues of disciplinary trespassing and embracing the humanistic ‘Gothic’ dark side, but also to (paradoxical) political/cultural complacency or uncriticalness, we will argue that it is a feature of both innovative, transgressive or complex approaches as well as of the insidiousness of ubiquitous systemic control in digital space and cultures informed by magnitude and scalability. Iconicity will then be revisited in relation to digital writing’s intermediality, the major role played by the visual and visualization in digital cultures, and complex surfaces in electronic literature (and beyond), while arguing that it is inextricably intertwined with monstrosity in simultaneously large-scale and detail-intensive contexts and processes such as the ones informing remix culture. The conclusion will reinforce the literary, philosophical, and historical relevance of the two highlighted projects from a complexity angle grounded in NLP and graph theory and employing the cultural lenses of monstrosity and iconicity in a way that both advance the specialized research and kaleidoscopically polishes and refines these lenses in their turn as well.
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Citations
Tanasescu, C., & et al. (2023). Monstrosity and Iconicity in the Model and the Medium. #GraphPoem and the Normalization of Natural Philosophy. In Florentina Armaselu, Andreas Fickers (ed.), Zoomland. Exploring Scale in Digital History and Humanities. De Gruyter. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/219251