Epistemographer

Session Organisers : SACK, Warren; JEREMIJENKO, Natalie; EGLASH, Ron

SACK, Warren :
Aesthetics of Information Visualization – Previous work: conversation map, translation map, visualization of large, public open-source collaborations, streets stories – motivation: how should we evaluate these systems? (Traditional mode: do they make a task faster?) – information visualization initially an outgrowth of volumes of data of modern technoscientific practice – Examples: – smartmoney.com’s Market Map – Nancy Patterson’s “stock market skirt” – lynn hershman’s “synthia” – Information Visualization as a discipline: conferences (InfoViz, by IEEE), journal, edited volume of papers, etc. – Info visualization judged at root on its relationship to the body, different from other science/engineering practice (which is judged in analytic, detached terms – Data Visualization could be considered “anti-sublime” (the intent is to make something easier to use, or understand) – Another way to judge d.v.: sort of an “anti-anti-sublime” – john Simson’s “every icon” – Alex Galloway’s “Carnivore” – Client for “Carnvore” information system (also, Scott Snibe, Jonah Brucker-Cohen) – If main influences on the modern computer system are office/work, how might we reframe the aesthetics of information visualization away from the bureaucratic – main argument: shift attention from visual aesthetics to an aesthetics of government; what sort of governance does the visualization in question foster/support? – aiming at “collective” body rather than individual body

EGLASH, Ron :
Visualizing Translation; Visualization as Translation: Two Levels of Visual Analysis in STS – Callon’s“translation” – 2 meanings: movement or displacement, and communication – Why do scientists produce visualizations: – to translate in both senses – to translate in public and private domains – Why do STSers produce visualizations? – to translate as scientists do – to produce reflexive engagements that can do things most scientists can’t – wants to replace “reflexive” with “recursive” – Fractals – use of fractals in African culture – “Cornrow curves” software, modeling cornrow hair braids as products of fractal algorithms – making the bridge between hardware and users (across digital divide) two-way, rather than one-way

ROGERS, Richard :
The Departure of Science from the RFID Issue Space: Mapping the State of an Issue with the Web – Increasing alignment of the web with the “official” and the highly-mediated (anecdote r.e. google resutls for “terrorism”) – interest in “backend politics” and “frontend politics” – RFID (radio frequency id) tags on Google: – absence of government in google results – a few business links, wikipedia, underground conspiracy theory sites – indication of preregulatory, contested status of RFID – wicked cool stuff

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