Humanities Visualization
In this module, we will be exploring the nuts and bolts of visualization. However, we will also be thinking about what it means to visualize 'data' from a humanities perspective. Following Drucker, we're going to imagine what it means to think about our 'data' not as things received (ie, empirically observed) but rather as 'capta', as things taken, transformed.
It means visualizing and dealing with the intepretive process that got us to this point. What's more, we need to be aware of 'screen essentialism' and how it might be blinkering us to the possibilities of what humanities visualization could be. Finally, we need to be aware of the ways our digital 'templates' that we use reproduce ways of thinking and being that are antithetical to humanities' perspectives.
To begin with, I'd like you to read:
- Drucker, J. "Humanities approaches to graphical display". DHQ 2011.5 http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/5/1/000091/000091.html
- Williams, G. "Disability, Universal Design, and the Digital Humanities" Debates in the Digital Humanities 2012. http://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/debates/text/44
- Owens, T. "Discovery and Justification Are Different: Notes on Science-ing the Humanities" http://www.trevorowens.org/2012/11/discovery-and-justification-are-different-notes-on-sciencing-the-humanities/
- Owens, T. "Defining Data for Humanists: Text, Artifact, Information, or Evidence?" Journal of Digital Humanities 2011 1.1. http://journalofdigitalhumanities.org/1-1/defining-data-for-humanists-by-trevor-owens/
- Watters, Audrey. "Men (Still) Explain Technology to Me: Gender and Education Technology" Hackeducation
I also have a number of pieces of my own archaeological work that I think provide examples of how humanistic visualization can be a driver of interpretation and understanding. For instance, one thing I am currently working on is the possibility for sound to be a better representation of humanistic data. Oh, and by the way: maps are great, but sometimes, maps of ideas are even better; check out this landscape of Last.fm Folksonomy. (If you have any facility with Python, you might like this library that allows you to generate similar self-organizing maps).