Volume V, Issue 4

As we conclude our fifth full edition of the Parsons Journal for Information Mapping we again extend our deepest thanks to over one hundred writers, designers, scientists, theorists, researchers, and artists who have contributed to the Journal. We've greatly benefited from your contributions to the ever-growing dialog respecting the procedures and perceptions of what makes information design information design. Next, we thank our readers and subscribers and those who have shared articles and ideas found within our issues. For this issue we present the concluding article on the "concept of signal" where the discussion continues on the idea of signal as it relates to perception and cognition. Analysis, particularly along heuristic lines, serves a critical role in improving interface tools; we are therefore pleased to publish a specific case study: the information delivery models of online hotel review sites and findings on how to both improve the visual and cognitive aspects of these models. PJIM has always had an interest in disseminating the "how" of design process, for this issue we look at theories of various modalities of interaction in interactive information graphics. Last, we present a paper that takes a unique view at the uses of visual representation in creating and archiving socially and politically relevant art. Also, we are excited to bring on a brave new member to the PJIM team: introducing Ashawnta Jackson who serves as our first-tier editor and will responsible for our outreach and mailing list logistics. We are already looking forward to the release of the first issue in our sixth volume coming up in 2014 which will deal with big data and visualization, as well as experimental threads that are now running through this exciting field of informative communications—we at PJIM are very happy to have Ashawnta aboard!

Jihoon Kang, Publisher, and William Bevington, Editor-in-Chief

Parsons Journal for Information Mapping

Signal: An Expanded Semiotics of Periodicity (Part II)

by Michael Filimowicz

Modalities of Interaction with Information Graphics Through the Web

by Giovanni Profeta, MSC

Detecting End-User’s Visual Model to Build a Visualization Tool Based on Online Reviews

by Elizabeth S. Carvalho, Marcirio S. Chaves

Cartography and Mapping Visualizations—A Genealogy of Space: Digitization and Visual Representation of Knowledge as Art

by Laura Gracia

Signal: An Expanded Semiotics of Periodicity (Part II)

by Michael Filimowicz

KEYWORDS

Affect, movement image, percept, periodicity, postphenomenology, semiotics, signal, time image

ABSTRACT

In this extended essay (the second of two parts), I reconsider the semiotic concept of Signal. I wish to update the meaning of the term Signal updating it in relation to postphenomenological perspectives on the technical extension of human perception by mediation. I define signal as periodicity and trace the structure of “regular recurrence” from wavelength, to percept, to memory. The discussion is situated as an “expansion” of semiotics towards cognition, applied science, and postphenomenology. Deleuzean and Peircean engagements are developed with some further comment on Ihde, Simondon, Massumi, Kant, and Heidegger in connection with the status of percept in relation to affect and concept.

BIOGRAPHY

Michael Filimowicz is an interdisciplinary media artist working in the areas of sound, experimental video, creative writing, net art, public art, and digital photography. As a writer he has published poetry, fiction, and philosophy, and as a sound designer he has mixed soundtracks for film and television. He is on the faculty in the School of Interactive Arts and Technology at Simon Fraser University.

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Modalities of Interaction with Information Graphics Through the Web

by Giovanni Profeta, MSC

KEYWORDS

Interactive information graphics, information visualization, visual data elaboration, data exploration, web communication, open data

ABSTRACT

In the web world, we have an increasing development of interactive information graphics. These are present in several fields, like journalism, science, economics, and statistics. Following the spread of the open data and the definition of new powerful web languages, the interactive information graphics are getting an important role in the scenario of web communication.

These communication artifacts allow visualizing and interacting graphically with data sets according to different levels of complexity. Their digital nature enables them to reconfigure based on the actions of the user who interacts with them.

Starting from the spatial and temporal systems orientation, this article examines, through a theoretical approach, the modalities of interaction with the interactive information graphics.

There are two main categories: the direct interactions, used to graphically manipulate the view, and the procedural interactions that take place through modules and panels, which are characterized by a linear process where each step is designed to support clear and focused operations.

Until a few years ago, web developers were the unique people who developed them, but today, thanks to the emergence of numerous web tools, we can create static or interactive information graphics without the knowledge of programming languages. So, web users, in addition to being user, are now becoming producer. This new aspect raises questions concerning the simplification of the interface for data entry and for management of the graphic.

BIOGRAPHY

Giovanni Profeta holds a Master Degree in Visual and Multimedia Communication at University Iuav of Venice. He collaborated on projects about web design and digital publishing. Currently he is carrying out projects of applied research at the Interaction Design Lab SUPSI, focused on data visualization and interaction design. He teaches web design and languages of interaction at the Bachelor in Visual Communication.

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Detecting End-User’s Visual Model to Build a Visualization Tool Based on Online Reviews

by Elizabeth S. Carvalho, Marcirio S. Chaves

KEYWORDS

Data visualization, information visualization, visualization evaluation, online hotel reviews

ABSTRACT

To achieve a good level in information delivery it is important to know the end-user’s visual model. On the other hand, it is also relevant to identify and characterize data accordingly to map it properly in visual terms. Although several guidelines are used in the Information Visualization field, there is still a lack of a solid and complete set able to give full support in the whole process. In this context, it is necessary to pre-evaluate, as much as possible, all the assumptions that are considered for its design and development. We present an exploratory study (n = 123) to detect the graphical preferences of travellers using accommodation portals of Web 2.0 (e.g., TripAdvisor.com). We took into account some of the most relevant ground rules applied in the field to map data visually and to design end-user interaction. Moreover, the evaluation process was completely oriented to data visualization. This paper introduces the main findings identified in terms of visual attributes and their combination. Although these findings were centered on the preferences of online hotel reviewers, we might extrapolate it to other domains. The goal of this work is twofold: To have a better knowledge of the online hotel reviewers’ visual and cognitive model and to have a deeper and wider understanding of the model itself, detached from its specific domain. Finally, we also present a brief description of the first version of our prototype that was developed based on the findings of this work.

BIOGRAPHY

Elizabeth Simão Carvalho is a researcher at CIAC—Research Center for Arts and Communication of the University of Algarve, Portugal and an Assistant Professor at University Aberta, Lisbon. Her research is concerned with the area of computer graphics with special focus on information and scientific visualization of data.

Marcírio Silveira Chaves is a researcher and professor at Universidade Nove de Julho–UNINOVE, Brazil. He works in the area of Project Management with a project titled Managing Information Technology 2.0. He has also published papers in the areas of Information Systems, Social and Semantic Web, Software Engineering, Natural Language Processing and Information Visualization.

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Cartography and Mapping Visualizations—A Genealogy of Space: Digitization and Visual Representation of Knowledge as Art

by Laura Gracia

KEYWORDS

Art and memory, art and technology awareness, genealogy of space, phenomenology, psychogeography, visual displacement

ABSTRACT

Since the end of the Cold War art and technology awareness theory has emerged in response to concurrently developing forms of new media. This theory responds to digitization as it arises out of analogue systems and the parallel waning of industrial modes of production. Art and technology awareness theory also considers the dominion of public social space in regard to robust forms of electronic surveillance, as well as the technical impact on both landscape and human body. The body can be seen as a central apparatus for knowledge as Maurice Merleau-Ponty makes explicit in The Phenomenology of Perception, “...the body expresses total existence, not because it is an external accompaniment to that existence, but because existence realizes itself in the body.” Artists are contributing to the understanding of the relation with the totality of the body against external territories as captured cartographic ally; they are resolving this dichotomy through expressions and renderings within the context of contemporary art. In this manner knowledge so derived becomes art. In essence, the ordering of territories can actually have direct implications on our societies and ways of living as well as ordering the societal structures ethically.

BIOGRAPHY

BA History of Art UB University of Barcelona, 2006. MA Curating New Media Art MECAD 2007.Curating, Communication and Criticism, Central Saint Martins, University of Arts London 2009. MA Media Art Histories Vienna 2010. PhD Art and Technology in Public Space, forthcoming. She has exhibited in Field Experimental Generative Animation London 2009; Arco Cinema Madrid 2010; Crisp London Los Angeles 2010; and Sound.art Event, VisualArtSpace, London 2013. She has been at ISEA Conference Dortmund Germany 2010, and has served as an invited curator at MOTA- Museum of Transitory Art New Media Art, Belgrade, Serbia 2011. She has been awarded by MACBA (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) as Researcher in Residence at Centre d’Estudis Barcelona. She is also a developer of the research project, Spatial Aesthetics, regarding the city and the future technology.

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