serial consign

In the past I've discussed Vannevar Bush’s Memex as a harbinger of networked culture and the desktop metaphor in computing. Earlier this year, I spent some time researching several other technologies from the mid-20th century to consider how they tie in to the history of information visualization. I plan on gradually reworking this material as a series of posts, each focusing on the history and/or aesthetics of a specific technology. This first post is a crash course on the origins of Radio Detection and Ranging (aka radar). Expect future posts on the Head-up Display (HUD), an excavation of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and other related technologies. It is my hope that in examining the history of these tools and processes we may better understand the intersection of 20th century imaging technologies and pervasive interface culture.

[radar display & operator circa 1945]

In tracing the genealogy of information visualization there are a number of potential historical discourses to draw from. The study of information design usually employs statistics, demographics or cartography as choice vantage points from which to consider the discipline. A continued interest in the work of William Playfair (1759-1823) and Charles Minard (1781-1870) is proof positive of the legitimacy of these backstories in the eyes of most design historians.

One of the most famous images associated with Charles Minard is his temporal map (pictured above) which details the ill-fated march of Napoleon into Russia in 1812-1813. It is no accident that one of the first complex information graphics schematized a military campaign, considering the longstanding tradition of technological and informational innovation being advanced by the gears of war. This particular cartographic enterprise has become of of the signature images of information visualization and can often be found within the first several slides of any introductory presentation on the topic. However, instead of submerging into a detailed analysis of the techniques and methodology of Minard in this visualization, a more fruitful discussion would be to instead dwell on the fact that this image was produced to document and represent a military campaign. Given that technological innovation is implicit in warfare, it only follows that the military is a key area of interest to any historical analysis of information visualization.

Of the many battles that took place between the United Kingdom and Germany during WWII, the Battle of the Beams was one of the most decisive. This conflict pitted nascent British and German radar technology against one another with aerial dominance of the skies over England hanging in the balance.

[german knickebein transmitter]

Radar was first developed by the German inventor Christian Huelsmeyer for the purpose of collision avoidance in nautical navigation. Huelsmeyer publicly demonstrated his system in 1904 and it operated by firing radio waves at targets and detecting their reflections. Over the next two decades, European and North American scientists would further develop this research and the range of radar systems extended from several to 25 miles. By the onset of the war, radar was emerging as a viable tactical tool. The crux of British-German radar warfare emerged from the German air force’s utilization of the Knickebein and X-Gerät signal transmission systems to enable nighttime bombing runs over Britain. The Luftwaffe bombing raids were executed with surgical precision and this presented a sea change in aerial warfare to which the British military had to respond. Fortunately for Britain, a rudimentary radar network had been implemented before the onset of the war and it was able to serve as the cornerstone in a comprehensive British defense strategy that would ultimately “out-visualize” their German opponents.

In 1937, a prototype radar network was set up along the perimeters of Great Britain. Dubbed Chain Home, the system consisted of a line of transmitter stations positioned at 50 mile intervals around the perimeter of the United Kingdom. Led by scientist Robert Watson-Watt the British military capitalized on this system to develop state-of-the-art methods for enemy detection and fire control. This advanced mapping of the airspace over the United Kingdom acted as a force-multiplier allowing the British defenses to concentrate the aircraft where they were needed most and coordinate supporting anti-aircraft fire. Chain Home was monitored by oscilloscope display units and the operation of this system is described in wikipedia as follows:

When a pulse was sent out into the broadcast towers, the scope was triggered to start its beam moving horizontally across the screen very rapidly. The output from the receiver was amplified and fed into the vertical axis of the scope, so a return from an aircraft would deflect the beam upward. This formed a spike on the display, and the distance from the left side—measured with a small scale on the bottom of the screen—would give the distance to the target. By rotating the receiver goniometer [a tool for measuring angles] connected to the antennas to make the display disappear, the operator could determine the direction to the target… while the size of the vertical displacement indicated something of the number of aircraft involved. By comparing the strengths returned from the various antennas up the tower, the altitude could be determined.

This imaging technology provided the British forces with an early warning system by generating realtime data tracking German aerial activity over, or approaching, the United Kingdom. These types of radar-based defense networks have been described as “electromagnetic curtains”, an upgrade to the medieval notion of fortification in which brick and mortar are bolstered and extended by telecommunication infrastructure (see Manuel de Landa's War in the Age of Intelligent Machines for an excellent critical reading of the history of the technology).

Parallel to the development of radar, British military engineers also implemented identification, friend or foe (IFF), which utilized an early version of RFID technology to distinguish friendly from "other" aircraft on a radar display. This kind of "tagging" and related RFID technology (along with the ubiquitous database) is now a driving force of contemporary inventory management.

The technological developments outlined above provided Britain with the strategic edge it required to turn the tide in the air war against Germany. Oscilloscope based radar system would eventually give way to the Plan Position Indicator (PPI) display (pictured above in a contemporary meteorological context), which is now universally associated with radar technology.

The recent Infinity Ward title Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (COD4) has been a runaway success. Released last fall, the game has captivated both PC and console gamers with a compelling simulation of asymmetrical urban warfare. The plot of this first-person shooter hinges on a power play by a faction of Russian ultranationalists who seize control of a cache of nuclear weapons and initiate a coup in a conspicuously unidentified Middle Eastern country. The narrative of the game bounces back and forth between the perspective of members of the British SAS and the USMC 1st Force Recon and gameplay consists of a series of missions which work towards containing this escalating geopolitical crisis.

COD4 contains some utterly incredible level design and the settings for the various maps include a mix of dense Middle Eastern cityscapes, small towns in the former Soviet Republic, and notably, the "dead city" of Prypiat which was abandoned after the Chernobyl disaster (the design of this level has an interesting backstory). Playing COD4 is not so much about moving in urban space, rather through the remnants of it.

Similar to the actual arenas of war employed by the military as training facilities, the levels in COD4 have been meticulously constructed to simulate plausible urban combat scenarios. The cities within this game vary from dilapidated to bombed out and buildings are generally semi-destroyed with walls blown out by bomb blasts and surfaces pockmarked by bullet holes. This aura of carnage permeates the game and the ambient soundtrack of gameplay is a medley of breaking glass, crumbling masonry and the sound of gunfire punching into drywall. Despite this incredibly visceral and photorealistic warfare-as-entertainment extravaganza, perhaps the most curious aspect of COD4 is the intermission sequences that advance the plot along in the single player version of the game.

[spov / COD4 motion graphic screen captures / 2007]

Like many contemporary first-person shooters, COD4 doesn't rely on cutscenes for storytelling. Person-to-person dialog and gameplay are all rendered with the same graphics engine used for gameplay. Given the global ramifications of the storyline, Infinity Ward opted to "zoom out" from first-person perspective and use motion graphics sequences to provide a means to communicate important events occurring outside gameplay. Infinity Ward commissioned the London-based studio Spov to develop these sequences and the results are mesmerizing. These motion-vignettes seamlessly blend satellite imaging, surveillance footage, GIS, intelligence dossiers, cable news broadcasts and wireframe graphics into a stunning composite narrative. Each time a player completes a level they are treated to a new sequence which brings them up to speed on the greater geopolitical ramifications of their gameplay. Archival footage of a target morphs into a radio broadcast that blends into a vector graphic schematic of a target location which in turn cuts to statistics of related hardware. All of this suggests the possibility of some kind of Total Information Awareness or perhaps merely an international relations "machine for narrative" that we are all quite familiar with outside any discussion about gamespace.

This conversation about logistics (and Call of Duty for that matter) was dealt with in a post entitled Information and Warfare last summer. It is also worth mentioning that if you've heard Lev Manovich speak recently, these sequences are an excellent example of the "hybrid image" he is talking about when he uses the term "meta-media" to describe the contemporary moving image.

Without descending into banal moralism, it is worth noting that in playing along with these sequences there is an implicit suggestion about the infallibility of military intelligence. While in COD4 the player is led on a few wild goose chases by bunk intel, participation in the narrative requires submitting oneself to a slick, perfectly synchronized storytelling machine which can always delineate a precise course of action. Apparently, in first-person shooters the fog of war only applies to sites where gunfire is exchanged. This might be something you can just chalk up to overly linear gameplay, generic plot junk or a "genre game" but working through COD4 isn't all that different than buying into the narrative of any given cable news network. Ironically, at the end of COD4 a news transmission suggests that as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the story arc never happened. The results of the gameplay were spun, shifted and steered into oblivion. How many games position themselves as chronicling a non-adventure?

In thinking about COD4's motion graphics over the last few weeks I keep returning to the slick opening sequence to Peter Berg's 2007 film The Kingdom. These opening credits make very effective use of a scant 220 seconds to map out an involved timeline tracking the tangled history of American and Saudi Arabian relations. Title credits are almost always utilized to set the mood or define the atmosphere in a film, but in instances like this they can trace an entire backstory.

More obliquely, another precedent worth considering is Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, which revels in a different kind of informational intertextuality. Although the aesthetic generally associated with the Bourne franchise is down-and-dirty camera techniques and claustrophobic action sequences, the film is also a celebration of technologically mediated voyeurism. It is simply not enough to watch films about films anymore, nor are action movies about action acceptable fare for a discriminating audience. The Bourne Ultimatum is about watching an action movie, and to this end about a third of film takes place in a CIA situation room in New York City. Viewing The Bourne Ultimatum is about SIM Cards, CCTV feeds, flagged bank accounts and intercepted phone calls. In a key scene, Jason Bourne incapacitates several hostile operatives in a quick and brutal melee. The view cuts from the action to a leering surveillance camera (we're being watched) to a display receiving the feed of the camera (now we're watching) with the audience bearing witness to this visual pun. The perspective eventually returns to standard third person, but the real thrill of the hunt takes place through interlocking databases and hacked security cameras.

If you're interested in checking out an artistic reading of the idea of the "situation room" please note Régine Debatty's post from last month on a relevant hackitecura.net project.

C0D4 is not one but several case studies on the connection between flows of information and warfare. Even outside of the motion graphics that inspired this post, the incorporation of numerous contemporary imaging technologies into the framework of the game is also laudable. Over the course of the COD4 the player employs night vision goggles, a variety of weapon scopes, the expected in-game Head-Up Display (HUD) and one level (pictured above) puts the player at the helm of a thermal imaging targeting console aboard an AC-130H "Spectre" gunship. This level steps outside the generic parameters of the first-person shooter and gameplay is completely mediated through a viewing apparatus, there is not even the pretense of a body to protect, only the ghostly flickering of allies on the ground far below. There is something uncanny about stepping back from conventional gameplay and reducing the avatar to a bit part on a much larger playing field - perhaps the game is a success in emulating modern warfare after all!

It was my intent to work some thoughts on the writing of Jordan Crandall into this post, but in revisiting his work I realized I'd be opening a can of worms. The title of this post is a riff on Crandall's idea of operational media - something he describes as the "detection and strategic codification of movement, and the development of maneuvers of strategic positionality." Something I expect to be thinking about in the coming months will be how this can relate to narrative. More on that later...