Okay, if you're anything like me, you don't have time to read the blogs you already follow. But I do recommend that everyone head over to SEED's Revolutionary Minds Think Tank, where Greg Smith is guiding a conversation on visualizing science.
That's where I found the video above, demonstrating the UCSD Software Studies Initiative's application of "cultural analytics" to Rothko's paintings. When the paintings are treated as data points over an artist's career, they can be compared and contrasted in untraditional ways, revealing new patterns and anomalies. Awesome find!
Here, Smith responds to Michelle Borkin's comments on shared data visualization methods:
Michelle Borkin is astute in recognizing the manner in which information visualization can collapse the distinction between disciplines. Borkin notes that reading visual representations of star formation and human disease are not unlike exercises as MRI and telescope data are similar in terms of "format, size and noise." Similar overlaps occur in representing other fields and visualization is not necessarily tied to the standard operating procedure associated with a specific domain. To the visualization jockey, a network diagram is a network diagram - at least at a schematic level. If the focus is connectivity amongst users of a social web platform or the labyrinthian management structure of a sprawling multinational, the approach could be identical. (more)
I've had a few things to post about this for a while, but they're stuck on the back burner, so in the meantime, get thee to Smith's thought-provoking posts, and leave some comments!
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