Sketch 6 _ response to Megh Marathe's and Angela Okune's posts, and Katie Ulrich's response _ Meredith Sattler
I'm thinking a lot about 'visual style,' and how it realtes to communication, in my work. Megh and Angela, in both of your posts, this issue also seems to be foregrounded. Megh, very explicitly in your research into the 'reading' of EEG data, and Angela [and Katie's response] in the 'flow diagram' arrows.
My visually based backgrounds in art and architecture have proven time and again, that content and form are difficult to tease apart [is this binary even exactly the right binary?], particularly in visual representations, where in many cases, the signified and signifier are collapsed, and they all have a 'look' or visual style to them. Clearly, content and form are also present in text [and numbers, perhaps to a lesser extent], but I suspect that in western culture [particularly American], we have more background/training to 'read' texts within their standard forms/styles [I'm thinking of categories such as prose vs. technical, etc.] than visual images. Hence, we have more skill and experience teasing apart content and 'style' in text form. This might contribute to some of our confusion between visual content/form. Perhaps as a culture, we just haven't been educated to 'read' images at a more nuanced level [very dangerous in a media saturated society[!] but that's another topic].
Both content and form, of course, communicate and are simultaneously imbued with norms, values, ethics, memory triggers, etc. [While I haven't delved deep into the theory/philosophy of aesthetics, I suspect there's a depth of knowledge related to these topics developed there.] Megh, initially this tension between visual form and content seems to be at the core of your interests...? I love thinking about your identification of an 'ugly' EEG as both a constructed category, and for how the 'ugly' judgement the graph engenders might prove transferable, potentially with significant implications.
Angela and Katie, I've been thinking a lot about the form of the flow chart [with arrows]. For all the good the flow chart does, it is a sneaky form of representation because it appears to be relatively spatially and temporally explicit, but in fact, in many cases, despite its ordered, analytical, and maybe even quantitative appearance, it resists those attributes. Flow representations show boundaries well [they require them, even where they might not be present], and put discreet entities in relationship with one another, often sequentially, and of course, they show a 'complete' system, somewhat like a map [BUT, they are NOT spatially explicit]. Ultimately, they often show a top-down idealized version of a situation. Because of their form, they are largely not capable of representing 'on the ground' complications, surprises, and abnormalities...the 'reality' embedded within many of the situations they depict. Here, 'style' stands-in for control: clean boundaries around entities, clearly defined relationships and pathways of circulation; yet no real communication of duration or geospatial position. If their form were to accomodate all of that information, the diagram would quickly become so visually complex, it would be illegible.
What they do do well, is COMMUNICATE a simplified, ordered, [highly biased] world. I also increasingly think they are very useful visioning/worldmaking design tools...but very dangerous when not intimately coupled with other design processes and representations.
Sketch 6 _ response to Gabriel Grill's post _ Meredith Sattler
Gabriel, your post inspires me to consider ways of thinking through your 'real time' mapping example, utilizing Latour's Inscriptions [definitely old school...but I think there's territory here to be further developed, particularly as it relates to mapping]. Perhaps, combined with his related concepts of Centers of Calculation, Cycles of Accumulation, and Inscription Devices, particularly as they interface with postcolonial studies. Thinking here [of course] of abstraction through scalar shift and decontextualization, which are necessary components of mapping. Your 'real time' example brings temporal accuracy into the mix as well. Additionally, many issues surrounding identification, classification, and ultimately power.
I'm curious how widely accessible the image/database/interface is that you show; is it just for the company factories identified on the map, or do others also hae access, such as government, labor unions, general publics? The intended and unintended audiences seem critical here to understanding how the image might be interpreted and used [recontextualized, in a sense].
Perhaps this idea of specific audience 'recontextualization' could be productive? In a sense, it reverses Latour's process of generation of a scientific fact through inscription production, which strips the object of its context, while simultaneously targeting a very specific audience who will likely read the inscription[s] in very consistent ways, through highly codified epistemologies and ontologies. In other words, it might reverse/complicate the reductionist exercise of mapping your authors performed. In your example, different audiences might perform their own diverse readings, through forms of interpretive flexibility [both through the generative technology itself, and, taking some liberties here, epistemologically, socially, etc.], possibly resulting in a multiplicity of reconsitituted contextualizations, or even contemporary versions of Autoethnographies.
I'm curious to understand more about how you're thinking about this image.
Inscriptions: Latour + Woolgar Laboratory Life,
Centers of Calculation, Accumulation, etc.: Latour Science in Action, Latour "Visualization and Cognition: Drawing things Together", Burnett Masters of All They Surveyed, Miller + Reill Visions of Empire
Interpretive Flexibility: Pinch + Bijker The Social Construction of Technological Systems
Autoethnographies: Pratt Imperial Eyes