Aesthetics of Investigation

AEsthetics of Data and its Analysis
Kahn Institute Proposal
by
Dominique Thiebaut

The amount of data collected and available today in our various fields of research has reached such a scale that we are lacking tools to explore the data. It is not uncommon for data sets to measure in millions or billions of items. What used to be story-driven research--ask the question first, and then use the data to answer it—seems like it is becoming data-driven research: gather the data, explore it along some of its multiple dimensions, and see what kind of story is being told. This shift should be taken with care, as one should bear in mind that there is no raw data; data is collected for a purpose [1]. Peter Hall, a designer and writer, uses architecture and its geography in his remarks, but they apply as well to other fields: "What already exists is more than just the physical attributes of a terrain (topography, rivers, roads, buildings), but includes also the various hidden forces that underlie the workings of a given place.[2]" This is not a new phenomenon, and one only has to look at Mappae Mundi, a set of medieval maps mostly from the 11th century, to see how the influence of the Christian views of the time significantly distorted the visualization of the world.

Furthermore as the technology evolves and allows us to garner new types of data in larger quantities, we find ourselves ill-equipped with general-purpose tools to explore and render the data. Increasingly new tools are conceived, putting us, the tool creators, in the position of design artists, and presenting us with the challenging task of mixing science, art and technology [2] with the "goal of using beauty and elegance as a path to clarity and analysis" [3]. Visualization, in particular, is experiencing a boom, as remarkably demonstrated in the recent Museum of Modern Art exhibit Design and the Elastic Mind. Many examples of stunning visual (computer-assisted) displays appear regularly in various specialized magazines such as Seed or Wired, but also in news publications such as the New York Times or Harper's, creating new standards of aesthetics. This boom is accompanied by the innovation of new programming languages, such as Processing [4], aimed at artists, designers, and scientists, and whose goal is to simplify the process of rendering this explosion of huge data sets. Remarkably and unfortunately, there is a lack of reusability of visualization tools: all too often visualization is performed for one particular set of data, requiring great designing and programming skills, the work is published, and the tool is set aside and the cycle is restarted for a new set of data. Lacking reusability and verification on different data sets, we run the risk of sacrificing clarity and analysis in the name of elegance and the aesthetics of design, and possibly the risk of presenting erroneous information. In many ways we are at a frontier where tools are invented as the data are gathered, and used only a few times, for reasons linked to the specificity of the data, and to the fact that advances in technology leads to quick obsolescence. It is as if one had to reinvent the wheel every time a new project is conceived. Elegance and utility need not be antithetical, nor is it necessary to consign new technological tools to virtual landfills.

The guest speaker will be Colin Ware, Director of the Data Visualization Lab at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Ware specializes in advanced data visualization and has a special interest in applications of visualization to Ocean Mapping. He combines interests in both basic and applied research and he has advanced degrees in both computer science (MMath, Waterloo) and in the psychology of perception (PhD,Toronto).

Ware describes his approach to visualization as follows:

My approach has been to consider visual thinking as an active process where visual artifacts are used as tools for problems solving. Consider how maps, both static and interactive visualizations of data, and assembly diagrams are used. Aesthetic principles that can be derived from this approach are related to perceptual and cognitive efficiency. Visual thinking can be thought of as a process that involves actions and memory stores both inside and outside of the head. A central operation is the visual query wherein a part of a problem is solved through visual pattern search. There is a critical distinction to be made between the design of tools for the exploration of data by a scientist and the design of tools and techniques for the presentation of results in the form of a narrative.

This approach is detailed in Ware’s Visual Thinking for Design book, published by Morgan Kaufmann this year.

The goals of this Kahn workshop are to explore the new challenges of data analysis and visualization, to discover, develop and refine categories of visual thinking and begin to understand the processes involved in each.

Together we will to learn of new methodologies and visual tools used in fields other than our own, create a network of resources, including technologies and people, share common challenges, and discuss the ways that art, science and technologies are merged in our analyses, and the implications of this. Ideally participants should consist of perceptual psychologists and neuroscientists, individuals interested in design, people interested in visual and spatial metaphors in language, computer scientists, artists, dancers and choreographers.

This project will unfold over two one-day meetings, that will be spread over two week-ends where Fellows will present their intellectual interests, concerns, , and experience with how the aesthetics of data analysis is expressed and represented in their field of research.

References

• [1] Jack van Wijk, The Value of Visualization, in Proc. IEEE Visualization 2005, p. 79-86. [[1]]
• [2] Peter Hall, Critical Visualization, in Design and the Elastic Mind, by Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Peter Hall, Ted Sargent, and Paola Antonelli, D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., NY, 2008
• [3] Paola Antonelli, Design and the Elastic Mind, in Design and the Elastic Mind, by Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Peter Hall, Ted Sargent, and Paola Antonelli, D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., NY, 2008
• [4] Ben Fry and Casey Reas, Processing, [2].