Creating “(Social) Network Art” with NodeXL

Abstract

If human-created objects of art are historically contingent, then the emergence of (social) network art may be seen as a product of several trends: the broad self-expression and social sharing on Web 2.0; the application of network analysis and data visualization to understand big data, and an appreciation for online machine art. Social network art is a form of cyborg art: it melds data from both humans and machines; the sensibilities of humans and machines; and the pleasures and interests of people. This chapter will highlight some of the types of (social) network art that may be created with Network Overview, Discovery and Exploration for Excel (NodeXL Basic) and provide an overview of the process. The network graph artwork presented here were all built from datasets extracted from popular social media platforms (Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Wikipedia, and others). This chapter proposes some early aesthetics for this type of electronic artwork.