Interactive Text Visualization for Humanists

  • Starts: 1:00 pm on Monday, April 8, 2013
  • Ends: 3:00 pm on Monday, April 8, 2013
The Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering and the Boston University Center for the Humanities present: Interactive Text Visualization for Humanists Milena Radzikowska and Stan Ruecker, pioneers in the development of interactive digital systems, will present a range of their recent and ongoing research projects. While interactive data visualizations are becoming more common in many areas of academia, humanities disciplines offer special challenges since their “data” largely comprise texts and images, rather than scientific or numeric information. Static modes of data presentation, such as pie charts and graphs, are well known, but these modes simply display information and thereby provide a single, specific perspective. Interactive visualizations, on the other hand, provide the means by which users can themselves explore, manipulate, and experiment with information, and so develop their own ideas as well as share them with others. In the first portion of this session, Milena and Stan will briefly discuss the theoretical background for these kinds of interactive visualization tools, with reference to ideas by researchers such as Ramsay, Unsworth, Moretti, and Manovich. They will then move to detailed descriptions of their own research projects. These include speculative timelines, a comparative search visualization, an enhanced reading environment, a theatre simulation system, and a number of different rich-prospect browsers, where some meaningful representation of every item in a collection is combined with tools to manipulate the display.
Location:
Hariri Institute for Computing, 111 Cummington Mall, MCS-180