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#Humanities Visualization

background image source http://metalab.harvard.edu/2012/07/paper-machines/
Main reading for today:
Johanna Drucker, "Humanities Approaches to Graphical Display"

Charts seem unproblematic

manycharts.png

But who decides these conventions?

  • Who figures out that these constitute good charts?
  • What are the principles that guide good chart making?

death star Oskuio Oskuio http://blog.oskoui-oskoui.com/?p=7322

  • graphical visualization contains assumptions about what consitutes knowledge
  • depends on idea that the phenomena is independent of the observer.

But it's not.

They affect each other.

(but they might not affect each other symmetrically).

Humanities visualization is messy

hairball http://keylines.com/network-visualization/five-pitfalls-network-visualization

Data versus Capta

'data' things given =>
independent of the observer, certain

'capta' things taken =>
codependent on the observer, interpretive

Humanities data are capta.

Graecia capta victorem cepit

  • Horace

Thinking about 'capta' isn't just being cute. It forces us to think about the cultural representation of data.

The Y Axis

y axis Graphing Primer, http://mathbench.umd.edu/modules/visualization_graph/page02.htm

Lying with charts

  • the cultural force of charts
  • the amplification of 'truthiness'

truncated axis

fox news

cumulative

real cumulative

florida deaths

The power of the chart wizard

  • just add data, poof!
  • and we've becomed conditioned to more-or-less accept

Big Data

  • the end of theory

  • um, no.

Population by gender, six countries

drucker

What ambiguities here?

  • Let's look at the 1891 Census of Canada, at

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1891/Pages/about-census.aspx#c

  • even the most basic of stats depend on categorization; the process of categorization is subjective, interpretative. Graphic visualization hides this.

  • Drucker: "shift from expression of subjective into to the subjective expression of perceived phenomena" (emphasis SG)

  • 'count of domiciles as a factor of x' where x is the subjective...

Takeaway:

  • design to show the interpreted status of capta.
  • use as many labels as necessary!

The X Axis

  • typically, as we're historians, we're talking time.

  • empirical mindset: time is continuous, unidirectional, homogenous

time http://mathematicsi.com

  • The fact that we are all supertired because of daylight saving's shows that time is socially constructed.

  • Drucker: humanistic time is relational. Not all days are equal.

  • need to take into account temporality

  • time as a factor of x (x ~ fear, speed, anxiety, regret etc)

Brugel The Harvest

  • maps: space versus spatiality
  • spatiality: space as a factor of x
  • metropolitan mindset of rural Italy (SG landscape archaeology research)

The Punchline

  • humanistic visualization acknowledges and foregrounds its ambiguity
  • it is a performance of interpretation, of interpreted phenomena
  • use the interpretative complexity of your capta to ground your visualizations

Now go read this post by Tanya Clement