Publics and Publishing. What can I say? It's been an experience. On a serious note, I did enjoy much of the content in the course and learning about different publics, modes of publication, archives and information graphics.
If I was to reflect say on my two favorite topics from the course, I would probably choose, archives and information graphics. Archives opened my eyes to the way in which data is constantly stored in hundreds of places, sometimes from only one click of a button. And information graphics because it showed me the ways in which data can be visually, and aesthetically, portrayed.
I kept out an eye out recently, trying to find a good example of a convergence of archives and information graphics and found a great one at work. When a costumer is deemed 'regular' and agrees to let us keep their data on file to make deliveries and taking their orders easier, the data is then put onto a map wich hangs in the staff only section at work and each adress is marked by its own individual colour or symbol. This means when an order is placed, the symbol becomes that persons reference on the order and we then use that to locate their adress and details.
Since completing this course I am always thinking of ways of publishing data, and on the look out for ways others have done the same.
Thursday, 24 May 2012
Wednesday, 23 May 2012
Aggregation
Looking at my own personal space, my own personal computer, books, social networking accounts, news pages and so on, I found it interesting to think in terms of my own aggregation and my own distribution in regards to the publics which surround these publications. How much am I contributing to these publics, or taking from them? Am I consciously or unconsciously contributing?
Thinking in regards to social networking platforms and internet based platforms, the line between aggregation and distribution would be incredibly blurred. This being the case for myself, but also for most, if not all, of the users active. I take and receive information from these sites almost simultaneously, I store it in my own personal database, while sending it to the data base of another user or site by reposting or simply clicking a link. With internet based publics, I both consciously and unconsciously contribute data. It would be impossible to distinguish the two as it is happening constantly and to a large extent in ways in which I am completely oblivious. Even right now, while I blog, I am distributing on several levels; my personal blog, data associated with the blog, my location time and place.
In terms of literature, I would very much be more of a aggregator. As my collection grows, and the shelves accumulate more and more books and magazines, my own personal database of information and literature grows. I am very much aggregating this information consciously. As far as distributing would go, I may distribute this data from time to time unconsciously. I may lend a book to a friend, or tell them to read it, I may tell someone about an article I read or an image I saw.
It seems increasingly harder in todays society to distinguish between aggregation and distribution and to fully know the extent to which one is partaking thanks to the enormity of online databases and archives.
Thinking in regards to social networking platforms and internet based platforms, the line between aggregation and distribution would be incredibly blurred. This being the case for myself, but also for most, if not all, of the users active. I take and receive information from these sites almost simultaneously, I store it in my own personal database, while sending it to the data base of another user or site by reposting or simply clicking a link. With internet based publics, I both consciously and unconsciously contribute data. It would be impossible to distinguish the two as it is happening constantly and to a large extent in ways in which I am completely oblivious. Even right now, while I blog, I am distributing on several levels; my personal blog, data associated with the blog, my location time and place.
In terms of literature, I would very much be more of a aggregator. As my collection grows, and the shelves accumulate more and more books and magazines, my own personal database of information and literature grows. I am very much aggregating this information consciously. As far as distributing would go, I may distribute this data from time to time unconsciously. I may lend a book to a friend, or tell them to read it, I may tell someone about an article I read or an image I saw.
It seems increasingly harder in todays society to distinguish between aggregation and distribution and to fully know the extent to which one is partaking thanks to the enormity of online databases and archives.
Visualization
For our visualization we decided to map out our groups communication over the course of one weekend. We set out to show a visualization of the globalization of communication through calls, sms and Facebook interactions.
We collected our data by drawing up a table in Excel and documenting locations, sent and received, time, am or pm, and form of communication.
From our data we were able to show the reach of our communications which span right across Sydney and even to other countries. Our tables returned a lot of data so our visualization is quite packed, however we feel this is beneficial as it shows just how much communication takes place over a single weekend and from only three people. If we times this data, maybe as an average, for the entire population of Sydney, which is around 2 million, we can see just how much communication takes place over a weekend.
For my indidual analysis, I looked at which ways our visualization pre-exists our making it visual and what publics it intervenes in. This data does pre-exist our making it visual in the sense of possibly archived data. The data exists in some form in some archive wether it be Facebook archives, apple archives or carrier archives. However, this visualisation presents completely new data, it is the data of our communications over a weekend so, in essence, this particular data, our visualisation, could not preexist anywhere, only here. As was explained earlier by Rachel, we tabled our own data in order to visualise it, so there are actually levels of creation which took place to make our final product. So, the actual data which makes up our visualisation exists outside of it while also within the data of our visualisation.
We collected our data by drawing up a table in Excel and documenting locations, sent and received, time, am or pm, and form of communication.
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| Table of communications |
From our data we were able to show the reach of our communications which span right across Sydney and even to other countries. Our tables returned a lot of data so our visualization is quite packed, however we feel this is beneficial as it shows just how much communication takes place over a single weekend and from only three people. If we times this data, maybe as an average, for the entire population of Sydney, which is around 2 million, we can see just how much communication takes place over a weekend.
 |
| Visualization |
For my indidual analysis, I looked at which ways our visualization pre-exists our making it visual and what publics it intervenes in. This data does pre-exist our making it visual in the sense of possibly archived data. The data exists in some form in some archive wether it be Facebook archives, apple archives or carrier archives. However, this visualisation presents completely new data, it is the data of our communications over a weekend so, in essence, this particular data, our visualisation, could not preexist anywhere, only here. As was explained earlier by Rachel, we tabled our own data in order to visualise it, so there are actually levels of creation which took place to make our final product. So, the actual data which makes up our visualisation exists outside of it while also within the data of our visualisation.
Our visualisation intervenes in the telecommunications public. So by portraying links between connectivity we are allowing for patterns to form and show our reach over sydney through sms and calls. We are visualising what is in essence an invisible public, that of telecommunications. It is this which relates back to us 'creating' this new form of data and allows us to view what is largely contained as code. Also, we are intervening in social publics. What I mean by this is, the data we collected took place over a weekend, so friday Saturday night when we were in social situations and engaging with others through communications and due to this our data intervenes in that public sphere to.
Friday, 18 May 2012
The Poetics of Information Graphics
I was largely unaware how much information I take in in a single day. Information seems to pass straight through me without me even consciously registering it. I am desensitized to it, unable to take the time to appreciate the ways in which information flows through society as I have been bombarded by it my entire life.
This having been the case, my eyes are starting to open to the ways in which data and information can be presented. As I was cruising through Google, looking over page after page of information graphics, one stood out from the rest and immediately grabbed my attention. It was aesthetically pleasing while deeply intricate, I had to know more about it. It was contained within an article entitled, Infosthetics: the beauty of data visualization. For me, this visualizaition sums up the way in which my eyes have been opened to visual data not only for its aesthetic appeal but the data it is in fact visualizing. It is the visualization of poetry texts from an annual German literature festival held in 2006. As described in the article, each word corresponded to a numerical code by adding the alphabetical values of its letters together then mapped onto a position on a circle and marked by a red dot. The grey lines are the words which appear in the poem and the diameter of the circles is determined by the length of the poem ( http://pingmag.jp/2007/03/23/infosthetics-form-follows-data/ )
I got a bit lost in the logistics of the visualization but it was what and how this visualization did that intrigued me, I would have never thought it possible to visualize data contained within poems. After seeing this I started to think of all the things I could visualize that I could see while sitting at my desk. I looked at my DVD collection and thought about how I could show which DVD's I view the most by some sort of a heat scale, the ones I touch the most would be a hotter colour then ones I hardly touched. I could then place this heat scale into a circle, like the above visualization, which could depict an entire year, or maybe even a single month. This would allow me to visualize when I watch the DVD's and would show heavier traffic maybe around university holidays opposed to heavy study periods.
I am gradually becoming more aware of ways in which information can be visualized, and, furthermore, what information can be visualized. It is not simply a form of conveying information, it is an expression of that information, a look into the way in which it flows and works with elements surrounding it. It is art.
I got a bit lost in the logistics of the visualization but it was what and how this visualization did that intrigued me, I would have never thought it possible to visualize data contained within poems. After seeing this I started to think of all the things I could visualize that I could see while sitting at my desk. I looked at my DVD collection and thought about how I could show which DVD's I view the most by some sort of a heat scale, the ones I touch the most would be a hotter colour then ones I hardly touched. I could then place this heat scale into a circle, like the above visualization, which could depict an entire year, or maybe even a single month. This would allow me to visualize when I watch the DVD's and would show heavier traffic maybe around university holidays opposed to heavy study periods.
I am gradually becoming more aware of ways in which information can be visualized, and, furthermore, what information can be visualized. It is not simply a form of conveying information, it is an expression of that information, a look into the way in which it flows and works with elements surrounding it. It is art.
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