Re: dhcs: readings

From: Tom Horton (horton@cs.virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Feb 12 2002 - 12:24:31 EST

  • Next message: Andrea K. Laue: "Re: dhcs: readings"

    Andrea: I don't see any readings

    I'm looking on the toolkit at this page:
    https://toolkit.virginia.edu/cgi-local/tk/UVa_UNKN_2001_Fall_UNKN25-1/displaymaterials/SESSION:101353439418094:86117553710937

    This is the page for Fall term "UNKN25-1 Fall 2001", but I'm presuming
    we're using the same one. (If there's a spring page, I don't seem to be
    getting it listed in my set of spring courses. Last fall the page just
    appeared in my area.)

    Am I looking in the wrong place?

    Tom

    andrea laue wrote:

    > Good morning all,
    >
    > I'm passing along Johanna's outline and annotated bibliography for
    > Wednesday. All materials are available on toolkit, with the
    > exception of the Schneiderman. Copies of his book, _Readings in
    > Information Visualization_, are floating around IATH, if you're
    > interested in that reading.
    >
    > best,
    > Andrea
    >
    > ---------------------------------------
    >
    > Design Production and Generative Aesthetics
    > Knowledge Representation Seminar
    > February 13, 2002
    >
    > Johanna Drucker
    >
    > The first time I came to the University of Virginia, I gave a talk in
    > the "Digital Directions" series in which I used the phrase, "the
    > aesthetic massage coefficient of form." Curiously, that phrase has
    > not developed the cult following I had expected it to. However,
    > packed within the pretentious box-car density of that phrase are
    > principles I'd like to return in this session. Primary among these is
    > the relation between aesthetics as seduction of eye and mind through
    > the use of visual form as a primary site of epistemology. Or, to put
    > this in the form of a working question: What is the function of
    > aesthetics in digital humanities?
    >
    > I've assembled readings from three perspectives: generative
    > aesthetics, graphic design, and interface design. Max Bense's essay
    > is the odd one out, but it's here so the how-to-design aspects of
    > this session can be pulled into dialogue with aesthetics from an
    > imaginative, artistic perspective.
    >
    > The list of readings below is ranked in order -- if you can only
    > read one thing, read Max Bense's essay, though Paul Mijksenaar is
    > succinct and very readily consumed. The summary comments that follow
    > below will give you an idea of what is in each of these readings.
    >
    > Max Bense, "The Projects of Generative Aesthetics," Computers in
    > Art , Jasia Reichardt, editor, (London: Studio Vista, 1971)
    >
    > Paul Mijksenaar, "Visual Information" and "Graphical Variables,"
    > Visual Function, (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997) pp.
    > 28-42
    >
    > Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, "Deconstruction and Graphic
    > Design," Reading, Writing, Research (NY: Princeton Architectural
    > Press, 1996) pp.3-23.
    >
    > Jacques Bertin, "General Theory," The Semiology of Graphics (Madison:
    > University of Wisconsin Press,1983) p.2-13
    >
    > Theo Mandel, "The Golden Rules of User Interface Design," The
    > Elements of User Interface Design (NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 199?)
    > pp.47-71.
    >
    > Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay, Ben Shneiderman, "Chapter 1,
    > Information Visualization" Readings in Information Visualization (San
    > Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, Publishers Inc., 1999), pp. 1-34.
    >
    > References and recommendations with summary remarks:
    >
    > Max Bense, "The Projects of Generative Aesthetics," Computers in
    > Art , Jasia Reichardt, editor, (London: Studio Vista, 1971)
    > Max Bense's essay is important as a pointer towards the realm of
    > artistic intervention in digital media. A classic essay, from the
    > 1960s, Bense's work was produced at the intersection of mathematics,
    > concrete and visual poetry, and procedural aesthetics -- an aspect of
    > minimalism and conceptualism central to artistic practice in the
    > 1960s. (The "Information" exhibition at MoMA in 1970 was the first
    > summary survey of this work, which gives an idea of the historical
    > moment at which the first generation of digital art perceived itself
    > as coming of age.)
    >
    > Paul Mijksenaar, "Visual Information" and "Graphical Variables,"
    > Visual Function, (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997) pp.
    > 28-42
    > Not as elegant in design as in concept, this work is most useful for
    > its succinct brevity and the economy with which it touches on
    > fundamentals. The distinctions of categories of visual information
    > and suggestions about effective means of communicating them
    > graphically are presented here in a useful shorthand form.
    >
    > Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, "Deconstruction and Graphic
    > Design," Reading, Writing, Research (NY: Princeton Architectural
    > Press, 1996) pp.3-23.
    > The best, most serious and lucid of designer-theorists, Lupton and
    > Miller demonstrate as well as discuss their principles. The entire
    > book is expertly designed, and the lessons it presents in the first
    > section could provide a useful foundation for analysis of information
    > presentation in print format. They are not, in this work, concerned
    > with the electronic space of information manipulation or display.
    >
    > Jacques Bertin, "General Theory," The Semiology of Graphics (Madison:
    > University of Wisconsin Press,1983) p.2-13
    > Dry as unsoaked beans, this outline of Bertin's approach to graphics
    > provides a foundation for analysis of information and its translation
    > into graphic form. This section outlines the entire book in
    > schematic, reductive form. The sub-section "A. analysis of
    > information" (p.5-6 in the summary, p. 16-39 in the book)is
    > particularly useful for humanists, since it provides a working method
    > for translating linguistic formulations into graphical diagrams
    > comprised of "invariant" and "component" parts. The page comprised of
    > the fundamental variables of a graphic system, reproduced in minature
    > in Mijksenaar, might be the single most valuable page of information
    > in any of these works.
    >
    > Stuart K. Card, Jock D. Mackinlay, Ben Shneiderman, "Chapter 1,
    > Information Visualization" Readings in Information Visualization (San
    > Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann, Publishers Inc., 1999), pp. 1-34.
    > An extremely useful overview of the field, this introduction to the
    > visualization of data in digital environments serves as the synthetic
    > summary at the outset of a collection of papers that address specific
    > visualization problems, solutions, and software developments. In a
    > pedagogical situation, this work provides authoritative grounding in
    > the techniques of information visualization, but is utterly unself-
    > conscious about aesthetics.
    >
    > Theo Mandel, "The Golden Rules of User Interface Design," The
    > Elements of User Interface Design (NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 199?)
    > pp.47-71.
    > Completely sensible, well-thought out analysis of interface based on
    > principles of cognitive psychology. Useful reading in advance of
    > designing an interface and crucial reading for critical discussion of
    > interfaces. Absolutely straightforward, how-to from a perspective of
    > fundamental principles of human interaction with information in a
    > digital environment.
    >
    > Alan MacEachren, How Maps Are Seen
    > Simply the best overall summary of theories of vision, cognition,
    > semiotics, mapping, and representation systems. Thorough, lucid,
    > reliable. Only overlooks its own aesthetics.
    >
    > Visual Exercise:
    >
    > Edward Tufte Envisioning Information or The GraphicDisplay of
    > Quantitative Information.
    >
    > compare with
    >
    > Robert E. Horn, Visual Language.

    --
    Dr. Tom Horton, Associate Professor
    Dept. of Computer Science, University of Virginia
    151 Engineer's Way, P.O. Box 400740
    Charlottesville, VA 22904-4740
    Phone: 434 982-2217  FAX: 434 982-2214
    horton@virginia.edu    http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~horton
    



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