Whether it originates from statistical tabulation or remote sensors, whether it flows in real time or out of recombinant databases, whether it serves the needs of private individuals, globe-spanning corporations or government agencies, information visualization is the operative technology of the networked age, a language of vision for the control society. Infoviz proliferates on the screens of factory workstations, financial trading floors, military commands and surveillance watchspots, everywhere that decisive movements are subject to managerial scrutiny.
In this text a collection of notes on the book Bauhaus (1999), by Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend (editors) and in particular the introduction Bauhaus - geschichtlich by Andreas Haus, is used as a starting point for further reasonings about the ideas and motivations of the historic avant-garde in general and Bauhaus in particular, and why that matters for contemporary practices. Key issues are the development of arts and arts and crafts within an increasingly industrial economy, art/-isanal working methodologies and relationships with science and new technologies, and the notion of the artistic or artisianal community as a driver of social change.
