Abstract
The paper discusses the methodology behind the visualisation of information. It points out the visual language strategies for encoding meaning and the importance of spatial arrangement of information. An overview of visualisation models is conceived on multiple levels, categorising the various forms of diagrams according to several approaches. Experimental data visualisations, among them also dynamic, interactive and three-dimensional visualisations, were realised in the project on the NEWW database with the goal to explore possible uses of different diagrams and graphs to make the structures and patterns in more apparent. These prototypes facilitate a hands-on evaluation of individual visualisation solutions with regard to this particular database. Focused research questions are recognised as a productive starting point for comprehensible although partial visualisations of the database. Our approach relies upon Lev Manovich’s definition of a new media object as a multiplicity of interfaces to access a multimedia database. A selection of visualisations that were created within the project is presented to point to particular communication situations, and possible problems that we encountered. A humanities database containing literary-historical information requires a specific approach that adapts and sometimes replaces the statistical data descriptions as used in hard sciences and social sciences. Also, using the Peircean semiotics as the methodological framework we point to the need to specify the scope of the visualisation project and its communicative effect. In the second part of the paper, we interpret the semiotic functioning of data sculptures that were realised using the contents of the NEWW database.
Presenters
Aleš VaupotičSenior Research Fellow, Research Centre for Humanities, University of Nova Gorica, Nova Gorica, Slovenia Narvika Bovcon
Professor, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Digital humanities, Semiotics, Visualization in literary scholarship, Charles S. Peirce
