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Oct 31 2007
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1 review
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science, art, visualization, design
• eagereyes.org
The Science of Information Visualization: A Sketch
via information aesthetics, in EagerEyes.org by Robert Kosara
According to one definition(ref), engineering is making things based on scientific principles - as opposed to the intuitive making that defines a craft. Information visualization (InfoVis) is practiced like a craft today, based mostly on practical examples, but not on theoretical basics. Here is a sketch of not only InfoVis as an engineering field, but InfoVis as a science.
We could model the science of InfoVis after physics, a well-established science. If we assume that we already have the engineering part, then there's also theoretical physics, experimental physics, and computational physics.
The Science of Information Visualization: A Sketch
Visualization is at the center of my understanding of the visual arts.
I approach visualization from an artistic perspective while Robert Kosara is more in tune with the definition given by Zachary Pousman, John T. Stasko and Michael Mateas in their paper "Casual Information Visualization: Depictions of Data in Everyday Life": "Information visualization has often focused on providing deep insight for expert user populations and on techniques for amplifying cognition through complicated interactive visual models". In my understanding visual arts have filled a societal function since their inception at the dawn of tribal culture till high modernity turned artistic productions into "commodities". That function was to illustrate the worldview of the men of knowledge of the day for all to share.
The difference between my personal approach and the "scientific" approach of Kosara and others resides in the nature of what is visualized. Art in my understanding addresses a global vision of reality as it is understood at a given time while "scientific" visualization refers to the illustration of micro observations realized at the end of the vertical tunnel of observation by any given science. The distinction is thus between a visualization at the macro level of reality at the attention of all citizens of a society and a visualization at the micro level of reality at the attention of the specialists of all of those particular micro levels: the scientists.
Zachary Pousman, John T. Stasko and Michael Mateas posit to expand the scope of scientific visualization from a specialist related field to the population at large. "Instead of work-related and analytically driven infovis, we propose Casual Information Visualization (or Casual Infovis) as a complement to more traditional infovis domains. Traditional infovis systems,techniques, and methods do not easily lend themselves to the broad range of user populations, from expert to novices, or from work tasks to more everyday situations. We propose definitions, perspectives, and research directions for further investigations of this emerging subfield. These perspectives build from ambient information visualization , social visualization, and also from artistic work that visualizes information". But that definition does nothing more than propose to vulgarize some aspects only, of micro observations realized at the end of the vertical tunnel of observation by any given science, towards "the masses". Let's remark that what would be vulgarized would be those aspects only that have a direct bearing upon the daily life of all. But how are those selections of scientific micro-observations reaching us all? I suspect that the capital invested initially in the researches at the micro level wants to find an outcome to that investment in the form of a surplus or to say this in a more common language in the form of a benefit. In that case "Casual Information Visualization" is no more than the designer form of commodities.
Art does not operate at that level.
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