introduction to indexical design conference 2016
TRANSCRIPT
25 JUN
the experience of information and materiality of data
Indexical Design
Fenway Center
Northeastern University
77 St. Stephen Street
Boston, MA
Organized by the
MFA program in
Information Design
and Visualization
Department of Art + Design
Peircean Semiology revisited
iconic
symbolic
indexical
Peirce, Charles Sanders. "What is a sign." (1894).
symbolic
indexical0
25
50
75
100
April May June July
0
25
50
75
100
April May June July
0
7.5
15
22.5
30
0 4 8 12 16
7%8%
10%
11%
29%
35%
iconic?
Information design and visual analytics
How can images, visualizations, visual languages, diagrams … help us build knowledge? What makes a good research question?
Ursus Wehrli – Tidying up Art - http://www.kunstaufraeumen.ch/en
is data visualization really all about symbolic operations? three reasons why we do not think so.
#1. The kinship between indexical phenomena and languages of visualization
we can read certain traces like data visualizations
The seismograph shows the dual role of the trace as symbol (linechart) and index
Kamel Makhloufi, “function”, 2010
indexical relationship in the digital domain - 1 pixel = 1 casualty (chart with defined resolution)
#2. Implicit causality: traces and visual evidence
“Seven” (1995), Dir. David Fincher
• Public Lab, Brooklyn NY. Balloon Mapping of the Gowanus Canal. Photo Josh Weinstein
establishing physical evidence as a central concern also in citizen science
Galton, Francis. 1892. Finger Prints. Macmillan and Company.
traces are the result of the method of measurement. they may be (literally) objective but are not necessarily neutral
to see tree rings, we have to cut a tree
#3 Experience: traces do not explain, they show
Adrian Pratt Router
we can read symbolic representations like traces (router LEDs as ambient display)
Subvisual Subway, Craig Ward, 2016
problems of representation across scales - Biology / micro biome projects
Design principles of indexical design: framing, not mapping a phenomenon
Offenhuber, Dietmar, and Orkan Telhan. 2015. “Indexical Visualization – the Data-Less Information Display.” In Ubiquitous Computing, Complexity and Culture, edited by Ulrik Ekman, Jay David Bolter, and Lily Diaz. New York: Crc Press.
Wilks, Kiesl, Moser, 2007, Garden of Eden, air quality display, Ars Electronica 2007
Lorenzo Scarpelli, Xiaxin Chen, Sound Identity 2015
"Is reading traces an ancient relic of “wild knowledge,” or is it present in all developed symbolic, epistemic, and interpretative practices?
How can we differentiate reading traces from reading text, and from interpreting linguistic and visual signs?
Are traces the seam where the meaningless becomes meaningful?
Do they connect our representational practices with the tangibility, physicality, and materiality of the world?
Are traces discovered or are they constructed in the act of reading?"
translated from: Krämer, Sybille, Gernot Grube, and Werner Kogge. 2007. Spur: Spurenlesen Als Orientierungstechnik Und Wissenskunst. 1st ed. Suhrkamp.
Pedro Cruz & Tom Starr - conference program Cyanometer - Horace-Bénédict de Saussure and Alexander von Humboldt, 1789