Sunday, July 25, 2010

Visual semiotics, information visualization and whales


Juxtaposing images can sometimes trigger waves of thoughts (see Sergei Eisentein's dialectic). The first image is a typical schematic diagram of a protein, where the lines and coils are symbols for the various molecular arrangement a polypeptide chain can adopt. The second is an information visualization diagram from Colin Ware's publication on the underwater behaviour of humpback whales: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/MCG.2006.93


We routinely reinterpret information into forms that allow us to perceive salient features. The resulting visualization mapping encoding systems may have a structure similar to a visual language, complete with grammars and syntaxes. Scientifically or artistically (whichever you choose) we might ask the following; How can we create languages that can be understood universally? The majority of our spoken and written languanges evolved at a time when our needs were much different (prehistoric communities). How is our language changing to fit the needs of this time where we have access to many different forms of information? And is in really that different? Phenomenologically and psychologically speaking, we are information receiving bodies - evolution has equipped is with a physical anatomy designed to perceive aspects our environment in ways that we are still only beginning to understand. What are we in relation to the flow of information? Perhaps starting with Norbert Weiner's cybernetic theory to Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind, we might think of ourselves as information processing units within a larger network of units that demonstrates characteristics of a scale-free architecture. It's like an economy where the currency exchange of bits and bytes changes form from energetic to physical to the biochemical to electronic realms and back again, various levels of organization/encoding/being named and back to the abstract in a never-ending, constantly-evolving pattern. Whether you chose to use the terms fractal, holographic or recursive depends on your preference. When we play a part in society or larger organizations we act as agents of information transmission. We ourselves are composed of information coding entities (from tissues to cells to proteins to genes, all of which arrange themselves into networks of information transmission). One of the goals of art I feel is to communicate a great deal within the simplest of gestures, lines, intonations (high information content communication). If our subconscious is recording everything, then how can we use this? And maybe all of this is more mysterious than any dialogue like this could ever hope to comprehend – doesn’t stop us from trying to push back the shroud, if even ever so slightly.