Heatmaps and Stress Analysis on Digital Objects

A response to Are.na’s 2023 call to action: Trace

Heatmaps are made up of layers and layers of existence and impressions, each layer tracing interactions and intrusions that have been made at single points in time — an immortalization of specific realities. Heatmaps provide a birds eye view of where the most friction has occurred upon a specified object over the course of a specified time.

The concept of Heatmaps existed before the use of computer instruments (i.e. In 1873 Toussaint Loua drew a shading matrix to visualize social statistics across the districts of Paris, possibly the first heatmap ever made) and today, heatmaps are most generally understood as a tool for optimizing web conversion rates, viewing weather patterns, or demonstrating concentrations of activity in living objects.

Heatmaps are also commonly used for stress analysis, a process that tests for the integrity and durability of physical objects, typically by depicting the various weaknesses and responses the object has to extreme temperature changes. This relation between heatmaps and stress analysis only seems to exist in the physical plane.

What would applying concepts of stress analysis on a different plane look like? What equates to stress-analysis in the digital realm? Applied to a digital object, a CAD model, a PDF document, a photoshop file, or an Ableton Live plug-in? What if photo-elasticity existed on websites that were engineered poorly? At it’s surface this could look like web scalability and bandwidth tests, but also invites either a (1) hybrid fantasy world where objects on screen meet the laws of the physical, or (2) a new approach to understanding the longevity of digital objects.