Yet visualisation is at least as old as written language. The earliest symbols are artistic rather than literary. Historically, the distinction between text and symbol has been blurred, from early European languages to Asian languages and as part of world history in general . Even today, language is geographically influenced . One can include cave paintings; they reveal the long-term association between image, space, and meaning Brown, 2012). In some prehistoric caves the paintings are apparently spatial pointers to reverberant spaces (and reverberation apparently indicates spirituality) while some archaeologists believe Lascaux cave paintings are maps of the stars (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/871930.stm). In Australia, traditional Aboriginal paintings are visualisations of mythical knowledge as well as environmental resources; they are cultural schemas and ‘totemic maps’ .
Textual Literacy
To improve public access to digitalised material we also need to tackle the problem of literacy, digital literacy, and digital fluency . Multimedia, visualisations, and sensory interfaces can communicate across a wider swathe of the world’s population. And although literacy is increasing, technology is further wedging a fundamental divide between those who can read and write and those who cannot . Yet developing visual literacy is still nascent, even though more and more people read by viewing graphical interfaces, and text-based interfaces cause serious problems for people with low levels of literacy .
Archives are not just text, and the digital humanities are collaborative and interwoven. Even the book itself is a material, embodied experience. Literature itself is linked to both the image and to materiality ; the materiality of Icelandic sagas and runic inscriptions are considered by various scholars to be essential properties . Humanities is/are not merely multimodal but also embodied experiences. The objects in and on which the humanities are described, critiqued, and preserved are more than just holders for text; they are essential artefacts that give researchers essential clues in the interpretation of text and author. Material objects are not merely brute objects; they are symbolic as well, inscribed into the lived and symbolic world .
Research labs that call themselves visualisation labs include Kings College Visualisation Lab ( http://www.kvl.cch.kcl.ac.uk/dhi.html), Wired! Lab Digital Art History and Visual Culture (http://www.dukewired.org/), AliVE—Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment ( http://www.cityu.edu.hk/scm/alive/), and the founder of CAVE VR, EVL—Electronic Visualization Laboratory (https://www.evl.uic.edu/). The name also appears in conferences and in journals—for example, the Journal of Visualization and Computer Animation . Can they all be wrong?
The above labs and journals suggest that visualisation can also be the development of a simulation rather than the depiction of data or a model. These laboratories may produce high-resolution graphical models to represent archaeological data, but they can also produce simulations to test hypotheses. Beat Schwendimann explains the distinction succinctly:
A model is a product (physical or digital) that represents a system of interest. A model is similar to but simpler than the system it represents, while approximating most of the same salient features of the real system as close as possible . . . [while] . . . a simulation is the process of using a model to study the behavior and performance of an actual or theoretical system. . . . While a model aims to be true to the system it represents, a simulation can use a model to explore states that would not be possible in the original system.
By creating a simulation rather than a model, we can test hypotheses. So, yes, I am also arguing that games can be considered to be visualisations, of the designer’s mental model of the game world. Games (with examples like Papers, Please; September 12; and Space Refugees) are persuasive and rhetorical simulations.
Earlier definitions don’t appear to understand the persuasive and rhetorical nature of visualisations, perhaps because they wish to use them as value-neutral tools. For example, McCormick et al. defined visualisation as ‘to form a mental image of something incapable of being viewed or not at that moment visible’ . . . (Collins Dictionary) . . . ‘a tool or method for interpreting image data fed into a computer and for generating images from complex multi-dimensional data sets’. This definition invalidates visualisations that predate the large use of data, does not attempt to explain the mental model and process behind the visualisation, and believes visualization must focused on image generation.
More interestingly, Kosara posited three interesting criteria for visualisation: it must be based on (nonvisual) data, produce an image, and the result must be readable and recognizable. He added this interesting subcriteria: ‘In addition to readability, a visualization has to be made with the intent to communicate data three steps: realizing that data is being visualized by the image, understanding what is being visualized, and how the display is to be read’. Unfortunately he also tried to create a simple spectrum ranging from practical visualisations to sublime/artistic visualisations. I believe he has conflated two quite different concepts, at least according to Kantian aesthetics. But he has come closer to a more useful and generic definition: visualisation should reveal the process behind the output.
But where is visualisation as a research tool in its own right? Can’t visualisation actually create new research questions or at least prove difficult to answer questions? Examples in my field, virtual heritage, include a photo-realistic model which showed colours not actually visible in the ruins of the remaining temple , computer modelling to deduce the astronomical function of ancient Roman obelisks (http://idialab.org/virtual-meridian-of-augustus-presentation-at-the-vaticans-pontifical-academy-of-archeology/), or digital data-driven maps to create historically derived visual descriptions of ancient Roman journeys ( http://orbis.stanford.edu/). There have also been more general humanities-orientated papers arguing that visualisation can be reflective and critical (Dörk et al., 2013; Jessop, 2008; Robichaud and Blevins, 2011).
Visualization is an extremely significant aspect of digital humanities, and writers such as Burdick et al. agree, but we need to improve our understanding and communication of visualisation as being part of the humanities not just now but also historically, before the advent of computer data. And to recap: historically text has not lived in a hermetically sealed hermeneutic well all by itself. A world with literature but without the arts is intellectually and experientially impoverished. Critical thinking and critical literacy extend beyond the reading and writing of text. Visualization can make scholarly arguments relevant to the humanities. Therefore non-text-based research should figure more prominently in digital humanities readers and monographs.