[-empyre-] Coda: Lauren Klein

[christina at christinamcphee.net]

Lauren Klein: favorite quote


“My training is as a literary scholar, with a focus on the writing of the early United States (ca. 1790-1830). I became interested in visualization when I attempted to employ some digital tools to visualize my archival data, and was struck by the confluence between concerns about “archival silences,” or gaps in the archival record, and similar discussions in the critical visualization community about the limits of the visual representation. Since then, I’ve begun work on a project about the history of data visualization, with a particular focus on examples that challenge our preconceptions about what visualization can and should do. One of these is the work of Elizabeth Peabody, which you can read about (and see examples of) here: http://medium.com/genres-of-scholarly-knowledge-production/visualization-as-argument-and-on-the-floor-736bb8859cf

  
I’m interested in how her conception of visualization is one that prioritizes interpretation, and is designed to facilitate multiple interactions between producers and perceivers of knowledge. Also worth noting is that her designs were enormous, and the intended mode of interaction was truly embodied: viewers stood around a rug-sized image, discussing the patterns that they saw. This feature has prompted me and my lab group to begin to rematerialize the “mural charts,” as she called them, using individually addressable LEDs and conductive fabric. (You can read about our progress on our lab blog here: http://dhlab.lmc.gatech.edu/blog/). I’m hoping these artifacts, simultaneously historically situated, tactile, and embodied, will prompt further conversation about the uses and limits of visualization.”




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http://lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2016-July/009163.html












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Christina McPhee

http://christinamcphee.net

insta: naxqqsmash