Thu
May
8
Matt McDonnell
Martin Wattenberg
Martin Wattenberg is a mathematician and he also works with information visualisation and its application to collaborative computing, journalism, bio-informatics, and art for IBM. While employed by SmartMoney he designed software called Map of the Market, which visualizes live data on hundreds of publically traded companies.
In the artwork shown below titled Thinking Machine 4, Wattenberg visualizes how a computer thinks about a game of chess. Other notable pieces of art from Wattenberg include The Shape of Song, and Third Person.
Wattenberg’s art deals with artistic data visualization. This style of art visualizes information such as music, museum collections, and web searches. His work has been shown internationally including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the New Museum, and Ars Electronica.
In the artwork shown below titled Thinking Machine 4, Wattenberg visualizes how a computer thinks about a game of chess. The work itself can be seen at http://www.turbulence.org/spotlight/thinking/chess.html.
Once you make a move the computer goes through and looks at every possible move and then decides on the best move to make against you. When the machine is thinking, a network of curves is overlaid on the board; see image at right. The curves show potential moves—often several turns in the future—considered by the computer. Orange curves are moves by black; green curves are ones by white. The brighter curves are thought by the program to be better for white.
