What to do with all that big data?
“Big data will be bigger in 2013” according to the article on the website of Telegraph written on the 26th of December 2012. Even though ‘big data’ was ‘big’ in 2012, they predict that it will be bigger in...
The Great Global Warming Swindle?
So there’s a documentary by the British Channel Four which argues that human/CO2 caused Global Warming is a pile of steaming bollocks (smells better than excrement). It can grow to become a kind of counter-Inconvenient Truth, and contribute to...
Visualizing Academic Interest
The internet has been heralded and praised for bringing democracy. It is stated since the advent of the internet that knowledge is no longer bound to limitations, as it goes freely over the web disseminating to all possible directions....
Fiona Raby Lecture Report: Designs for fragile personalities in anxious times
Room F201C of the University of Amsterdam’s Oudemanhuispoort building for an hour was the domain of Fiona Raby. She presented her ideas on design, which has close links to the design practice of Anthony Dunne, together they’re also known...
Visualizing the ‘invisible space’
We live in a constant struggle to steer through the big and varied torrent of data which is unleashed everyday. And “data” can cover many different things. By following the Concise Lexicon for the Digital Commons created in 2001...
Analyzing Information Visualization Projects on the Topic of Economic Inequality
The current paper focuses on information visualization projects related to the topic of economic inequality which can, in this particular case, be more specifically categorized under “speculative visualization” as defined by the authors Tanyoung Kim and Carl DiSalvo in...
Show Me the Data 2012
Show me the data is an annual conference about data visualizations, developed by multidisciplinary students of the master New Media and Computer Science at the UvA and Editorial Design at the Utrecht Graduate School of Visual Art and Design...
Tracking the Stars: Co-star and the Creation of the Digital Celestial
Ayoub Samadi Introduction A centuries old practice clad in contemporary systems of information processing. For millenia, astrology has been engulfed in the depths of time and rationality and has not only until recently began to regain the reverence it...
Graphical Primitives versus Direct Visualization
A rectangle walks in a bar and orders a drink. An attractive circle sits on a bar stool next to the rectangle. ‘Hey Circle, want to get primitive?’ The Circle looks the rectangle slowly up and down and says:...
Politwittic
Politics in the age of new media have different characteristics than the politics before the year 2000. Since its launch, the World Wide Web revealed itself as a powerful tool to reach a large part of the (wealthy) population....
www.visualcomplexity.com
“VisualComplexity.com intends to be a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project’s main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as...
Does Form Ever Follow Function?
I was lucky enough to attend to the Infographic Congress, in Zeist, on March 1st 2013. Dedicated to data visualization, this congress featured numerous speakers whom all presented data visualizations. Some of these graphic works were so old that...
Notes from Visualizing Europe: the power and potential of data visualization
Last week I attended Visualizing Europe, a one-day conference where a very interesting and diverse group of data visualization experts and designers talked about the power and potential of data visualization. Below are some notes and comments on some points...
Cinemetrics: Creative Ways to Measure and Visualize Movie Data
Visualizations with meta data from movies is nothing new, however those mostly depict available data sets about movies’ budgets, box office and their awards. Only recently designers and film historians with the help of media visualization techniques and tools...
The University of Amsterdam’s ‘Great Man Theory’ on Wikipedia
Together with Erik, I’m working on a Digital Methods project called ‘Repurposing the Wikiscanner‘, where we try to adopt the infamous tool for uses other than scandal hunting. We’re still working on it, but here’s a nice preview. So...
Visualizing Political Chatter
With regards to political campaigns, the Internet has attracted the attention of politicians, researchers and the general public. During the last years the medium has developed into one of the most important – if not the most important –...
‘Bashing’s’ Datavisualization as Information Intervention
Living in the era of Big Data, data visualization is booming in science, marketing and journalism (( Segel, Edward, and Jeffrey Heer. “Narrative visualization: Telling stories with data.” Visualization and Computer Graphics, IEEE Transactions 16.6 (2010): 1139-1148. )). In...
qwiki – can linear narratives still be relevant in hyperlinked contexts?
Some time has passed since the official launch of qwiki (see the Masters of Media Blog initial impressions). Although still in alpha, a more profound critique can be put forward as the platform evolved and opened itself to users.
Data Visualization Templates
Templates are ready-made project files that can be customized and used as the basis for various types of media content. In the world of graphic design, web design and motion graphic design, the use of templates is widely spread....
Making Visible the Invisible: Information Visualization Through a Fine Art Lens
“Big Data will replace ideas, paradigms, organizations and ways of thinking about the world.” –Steve Lohr It is difficult to mention the present-day ubiquity of data without resorting to clichés. We are frequently reminded that data is in use...
Interview with James Robinson: Mapping the World’s Signal
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a blogpost about Open Signal Maps, an application for android that maps the world’s signal. I used the application myself for several days and it worked pretty fine and gave me better...
Mapping the Web
By zooming in and out, you navigate through the digital Pompeii of millions of abandoned homepages. While you pass the neighbourhood called ‘Pentagon’, you see military images and short stories about the army. By entering another district named ‘Vienna’,...
City Vibes Project – A heartbeat of the city based on its BPM
We choose our music to best fit our mood, our spirit or our activities. We use it to celebrate our victories, to soothe our pain or to give us energy when we are feeling down. This is why ensuring...
Data visualization: New professionals in demand
Data is the biggest change in the digital society that appeared during the era of the Internet and technologies. Information is exploding: 90% of the world’s data was generated over last two years. Data visualization and analytic view makes possible...