{"id":6915,"date":"2008-03-17T21:15:40","date_gmt":"2008-03-17T21:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/17\/manovich-data-v\/"},"modified":"2008-03-17T21:15:40","modified_gmt":"2008-03-17T21:15:40","slug":"manovich-data-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/17\/manovich-data-v\/","title":{"rendered":"Manovich, "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime""},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

 Manovich, Lev. "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime."
\nSmall Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools<\/i>. Eds. Byron Hawk, David Reider,
\nand Ollie Oviedo. Electronic Mediations Ser. 22. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P,
\n2008.<\/p>\n

Why render data visually? Lev Manovich, in "Data Visualization as New
\nAbstraction and as Anti-sublime," the opening chapter in Small Tech<\/i>
\n(reprinted from ArtPhoto<\/a><\/i>, 2003),
\nresponds to this with an answer that, in spirit, moves beyond the "data
\nepistemology" of a cumbersome, old (perhaps even mythical) scientism. Why render
\ndata visually? "[T]o show us the other realities embedded in our own, to show us
\nthe ambiguity always present in our perception and experience, to show us what
\nwe normally don’t notice or pay attention to" (9). By the end of this brief
\narticle, Manovich begins to get round to the idea of a rhetoric<\/i> of data
\nvisualization, even if he never calls it this. Despite being caught up in a
\nrepresentationalist framework as he accounts for what data visualization does<\/i>,
\nManovich eventually keys on "daily interaction with volumes of data and numerous
\nmessages" as the "more important challenge" facing us. That is, we are
\nsteeped now in a new "data-subjectivity." <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Manovich provides four sections in his short essay: Visualization and
\nMapping, Data Modernism, Meaningful Beauty: Data Mapping as Anti-Sublime, and
\nMotivation Problem. The "Visualization and Mapping" section begins with
\nTufte and Descartes; these are the precedents for the "dynamic data
\nvisualization" Manovich wants us to consider as it has spilled over from its
\norigins in the "pure and applied sciences, from mathematics and physics to
\nbiology and medicine" to the greater "cultural sphere" (3). Next, Manovich
\nattaches this to a mapping paradigm, considered here as a kind of direct
\nconversion of data into image (1:1 precision in the translation of territory
\ninto map). This risks making visualization its own end; I question whether
\nhis approach does enough to keep the image open on the side of play, preferring
\na contingent and flexible (more model- or relay-like) image than one fixed and
\ndeclarative in its presentation. The section on Data Modernism builds
\ntoward an understanding of data visualization as new abstraction. Here
\nabstraction is matched with the same tradition in twentieth century Modernist
\nart: the reduction of chaos into simple patterns. Given my own interest in
\nabstracting practices, I tend to prefer drawing closer parallels between "new
\nabstraction" and network studies. I deal with some of this in the diss;
\nManovich’s take on abstraction might find a small place there. Of course,
\none of my reservations about "new abstraction" tracing back through art
\ntraditions is that it holds onto a faint notion of representable reality as a
\nbackdrop against which every movement is defined. Perhaps this is one of
\nthe ways a rhetoric of data visualization would do justice to Manovich’s
\ninterest in subjectivity, agency, and motive, while also offering a greatly
\nexpanded vocabulary for complicating strict evaluative rules regarding chart
\njunk and clarity (e.g., following Tufte).<\/p>\n

In the third section of the essay, Manovich touches on scale. He
\ndescribes data visualization as "anti-sublime" as it contrasts with the Romantic
\nart concerned with the sublime." This section seems, again, to position
\ndata visualization as an end–an end in an aesthetics and epistemology valuing
\nconcretization<\/i>–rather than a means, a model, or a relay. The stuff
\non scale is encouraging, but then he ends the section, saying, "Yet, more often
\nthan not, the subjects of data visualization projects are objective structures
\n(such as the typology of the Internet) rather than the direct traces of human
\nactivities" (7). What’s not clear is why<\/i> this is so or how<\/i>
\nManovich knows it. This isn’t to dispute his claim as much as to call into
\nquestion its basis, and also ask how these "objective structures" square with
\nthe "data-subjectivity" he introduces in the final section. In the final
\nsection, he is concerned with motivations and choices: why this or that design
\nchoice when several others are available? An arhetorical treatment of data
\nvisualization entertains the prospect that there is always one best way to
\npresent the data visually; a rhetorical approach, on the other hand, seems to me
\nto create a situation–a conductive role, an agent, an exigency–in whatever
\ncomes between the data and the visualization of it. In other words, while
\nManovich is concerned that "computer media simultaneously make all these choices
\nappear arbitrary" (7), a rhetoric of data visualization would frame those
\nchoices as "available means" rather than an automated function of the computer
\ntechnology. Manovich: "One way to deal with this problem of motivation is
\nnot to hide but to foreground the arbitrary nature of the chosen mapping" (8).
\nYes, foreground it, but also let the "it" be a "rhetorical nature" in equal
\nmeasure to an "arbitrary nature." <\/p>\n

"Thus data visualization moves from the concrete to the abstract and then
\nagain to the concrete<\/i>" (6).<\/p>\n

Phrases: "Platonic schemas" (5), "new abstraction" (5), "reversibility" (6),
\n"organic abstraction" (6), "modernist abstraction" (6), "anti-sublime" (6),
\nmotivation (6), "data epistemology" (8), "data-subjectivity" (9)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 3<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span> Manovich, Lev. "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime." Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools. Eds. Byron Hawk, David Reider, and Ollie Oviedo. Electronic Mediations Ser. 22. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2008. Why render data visually? Lev Manovich, in "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-sublime," the opening chapter in Small…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[167],"tags":[622,639,816,152,423,815,809,330,817,818,150,819,814,485,136,484],"class_list":["post-6915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading_notes","tag-abstract","tag-abstraction","tag-choice","tag-data","tag-database","tag-descartes","tag-mapping","tag-maps","tag-motivation","tag-reversibility","tag-structure","tag-subjectivity","tag-sublime","tag-tufte","tag-visual","tag-visualization"],"yoast_head":"\nManovich, "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime" - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/17\/manovich-data-v\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Manovich, "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime" - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: 3 mins Manovich, Lev. "Data Visualization as New Abstraction and as Anti-Sublime." Small Tech: The Culture of Digital Tools. Eds. Byron Hawk, David Reider, and Ollie Oviedo. Electronic Mediations Ser. 22. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2008. Why render data visually? 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