visual analysis and digital humanities

data / visual analysis & digital humanities

zoe [email protected]

• embodiment should be a dynamic and subjective process

• our tools should engage us in a “dynamic, generative, iterative” process

• model as an interpretive expression of a particular dataset

drucker (& nowviskie), 2004, speculative computing

data/ visual analysis

MONK: metadata offers new knowledge

http://www.monkproject.org/

• traditional text-analysis tools feature prominent visualization tools

TAPoR: text analysis portal for research

http://portal.tapor.ca/


• runs in web-browser

• interactive displays

• upload your own texts


incorporating results directly

into publications

• “Many Eyes is a bet on the power of human visual intelligence to find patterns.”

• “Our goal is to ‘democratize’ visualization and to enable a new social kind of data analysis.”

visualization applications become text-friendly

http://services.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/home

• runs in web-browser

• interactive displays

• users have access to the underlying data

• visualizations can be embedded or linked

• visualization tools are more accessible to the “lone scholar”

• more data is available in machine-readable format

• are these useful tools for humanities research? can they engage us in a “dynamic, generative, iterative” analysis?


• model your data/metadata

• interpret

• re-present

• the modeling process may be more important than any one model


an approach (works in progress)


macfadyen: meter & rhyme, repetition

a quick, overall view


almila: overview of a discipline, citation network

spreadsheets are your new best-friend


• other examples

• Gedankenraum: semaspace

•


authors who cite articles published in Leonardomostly art journals

Subject Area Record Count % of 1689

ART 770 45.5891%

PSYCHOLOGY, EXPERIMENTAL 154 9.1178%

PSYCHOLOGY 103 6.0983%

HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 77 4.5589%

MUSIC 68 4.0261%

PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY 58 3.4340%

COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING 52 3.0787%

COMPUTER SCIENCE, THEORY & METHODS 47 2.7827%

C O M P U T E R S C I E N C E , INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS 42 2.4867%

PHILOSOPHY 35 2.0722%

(140 Subject Area value(s) outside

display options.)

Source Title Record Count % of 1689

LEONARDO 659 39.0172%

PERCEPTION 39 2.3091%

P E R C E P T I O N & PSYCHOPHYSICS 23 1.3618%

DIGITAL CREATIVITY 18 1.0657%

L E O N A R D O M U S I C JOURNAL 18 1.0657%

C O M P U T E R M U S I C JOURNAL 13 0.7697%

BRITISH JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS 11 0.6513%

JOURNAL OF AESTHETICS AND ART CRITICISM 11 0.6513%

INTERFACE-JOURNAL OF NEW MUSIC RESEARCH 10 0.5921%

BELFAGOR 9 0.5329%

(529 Source Title value(s) outside display options.)

mostly Leonardo

examples: data/ visual analysis

• Cave Art: “Lascaux” (2005) the order of superimposed images: horse, aurochs-stag

• manuscripts

examples: data/ visual analysis

applications to watch

• Simile: http://simile.mit.edu

• Swivel: http://www.swivel.com

• Google visualization and spreadsheets: e.g. Motion Chart

will digital humanities provide new knowledge?

• or just “better”/different artifacts, communication & arguments?

• weigh the benefits and risks of an opportunity

• greater benefits if:

• viewed as a process (rather than product)

• integrated into research as well as instruction

• as much processing in the hands of researchers as practical

• scholars and developers work together

visual analysis and digital humanities

Technology