Three years ago (almost), I discovered an interesting comment about the Places and Spaces: Mapping Science exhibition (2006 edition), curated  by Katy Börner (Indiana University, Director of the InfoVis Lab), and I found particularly interesting the quotation of John Thackara (author of In the Bubble: Designing for a complex world. 2005. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), talking about Macroscopes. In fact that metaphor is, in my opinion quite compelling if you want to talk about the quest for the ‘big picture’ (that actually is often our aim at DensityDesign).

So I investigated a bit and I found a previous book by our colleague (and friend of Thackara) Ezio Manzini (1989. The Materials of Invention: Materials and Design. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press) where the concept of the macroscope is used: «The quality of the mental image, which is the point of departure for the problem setting, and the overall map of the possible, whence one can progressively derive more detailed maps upon which to trace the path of the problem solving, originate with the macroscope», and finally I went back to the book of Joël de Rosnay (…), where the author hope for new tools to face the complexity of the world: «Microscope, telescope: these words evoke the great scientific penetrations of the infinitely small and the infinitely great […] Today we are confronted with another infinite: the infinitely complex. We are confounded by the number and variety of elements, of relationships, of interactions and combinations on which the functions of large systems depend. We are only the cells, or the cogs; we are put off by the interdependence and the dynamism of the systems, which transform them at the very moment we study them. We must be able to understand them better in order to guide them better. […] Now a new tool is needed by all those who would try to understand and direct effectively their action in this world, whether they are responsible for major decisions in politics, in science, and in industry or are ordinary people as we are. I shall call this instrument the macroscope (from macro, great, and skopein, to observe).»

Then we start using the idea of macroscope in our presentations (TEDx Italy 2009 – 11:00 – and Better Software 2010) and in some of our papers (itAIS 2010).

Now is quite interesting and even more motivating to see on one of the very recent paper from Katy Börner (2011. Plug-and-Play Macroscopes. Communications of the ACM. Vol. 54(3), 60-69, ACM Press) the concept and the metaphor of macroscope taken (again) into consideration!

Data are everywhere.
Many disciplines are addressing the issues of giving access and making sense to all these data.
What can and should (visual) design do?

“VisualEyes / The Role of Design in Data, Information and Knowledge Visualization”
Open Seminar

Thursday 20 May 2010 | 10.00 – 13.30
Politecnico di Milano | Campus Bovisa | Facoltà del Design | Aula CT63
[Event's page on Facebook ]

10:00
“Understanding through Visualization: a Design Challenge?”
Paolo Ciuccarelli | Politecnico di Milano | dCom | DensityDesign
[ http://www.densitydesign.org ]

10:30
“Social Data Visualization”
Andrew Vande Moere | Senior Lecturer at University of Sydney & KULeuve
[Information Aesthetics | http://www.infosthetics.com ]

11:15
“Bootstrapping: use visualization to create visualizations”
Moritz Stefaner | Well Formed Data
[ http://moritz.stefaner.eu/ ]

12:00
“Web visualizations tools and trends”
Daniele Galiffa | VISup
[ http://www.visup.it ]

12:45
Open discussion

Taken from “An Atlas of Radical Cartography”

2009 has been a very exciting year,
We visualized poverty, we investigated three some relationships, we understood the meaning of fuzzy, we explored the power of halftone, we folded polyhedrons, we start to twitter, we discussed about uncertainty, turtles, Knowledge Visualization, casual loops and social audits, sustainability and ecological impacts; we addressed urban school needs, we followed student in design schools, we connected design research hubs, we drew map of future, we started a quotation wall, we argued (a lot) we agreed (sometimes) we did our best (almost always); someone went to new Orleans, someone to Paris, someone to Venice, someone to Naples, someone to Como, someone to Korea. Someone is gone and now lives far away, someone will come back. If we draw a map, it will be quite dense, of course.

Now the 2010 has started and I wish everyone an exciting and challenging year again; I wish you be brave and  question all the problems you will face, I wish you never stop till you feel it is good enough, I wish you find a way of lighten difficult situations and even more to fully enjoy the pleasant ones, i wish you will keep on telling amazing stories. happy 2010!

Last Monday the Fifth Edition of Frontiers of Interaction took place in Rome, confirming itself as one of the most interesting event in the panorama of interaction design. A rich schedule -full of people and thoughts to share- and a wonderful location -the Aquario Romano- to talk about how technologies are changing our life.

The issue of complexity turned out as one of the frontiers that have to be explored. A first moment of reflection on that topic was given by Daniele Galiffa, CEO and co-founder of VISup, teaching assistant at Density Design Lab in 2004: he introduced the importance of using visualization methods in order to describe the complexity that is part of interaction design and information technology projects.

The tools and techniques coming from the world of information visualization can be adopted for analyzing, designing and also explaining complex phenomena such as a digital eco-system, taking advantage from the power of visualization to facilitate the observation, the ideation and the comprehension.

These thoughts became more tangible for the audience through the contribution of Andrea Vaccari, a research associate at the MIT SENSEable City Laboratory, who presented several techniques they’ve developed for giving visibility to social activities.

Again the visualization turns out as a basic support for the description of complex phenomena, augmented by the power of computer technology. They create software able to record and show data that are so complex that humans can hardly control and express.

Their use of technology together with the excellent control of the visual languages and the visual qualities conveying information is of course something that overcomes the frontiers.

“Beauty will save the world”
Feodor Dostoevskij, The idiot, 1868-69

“If anything can save us: that will be beauty!”
Ettore Sottsass, 2001

In a time in which World and Design are concentrated on reflections on the major issues of sustainability, energy and globalization Domus Academy’s international students and Alumni wonder about the courage and the innocence needed to measure themselves with a so sublime and yet so present pursuit as the Search for Beauty.
Received quotes are ingredients of/for a graphic representation, that synthesize emerging terms and how them are related to the geographical origin of thoughts, showing how peculiarities of local culture impacts on personal interpretation of beauty.

The panel has been on show at That’s Design 2009, in the occasion of Salone del Mobile, the biggest event here in Milano concerning Design in all its multiple identities!

]]> http://www.densitydesign.org/2009/04/changing-with-beauty/feed/ 0 http://www.densitydesign.org/2009/04/information-design-conference-2009/ http://www.densitydesign.org/2009/04/information-design-conference-2009/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 21:26:42 +0000 DensityDesign http://www.densitydesign.org/?p=1071 more]]>

After the Density design course I start a thesis about form design and the relation between people, bureucratic structure and information. In the beginning of April I went to London to partecipate at the information design conference 2009, held in Greenwich.
Not only the visualization of complex data, but also the simplification of complex informations to act in daily life: documents, forms, wayfinding, health information, instruction and explanation,  are some of the topics discussed.
Contributions emphasized the multidisciplinarity of information design, by gathering linguists, psychologists, specialized authors, communication designers: two days of debates and meeting in a confortable exchange mood.
Organizers Paul Stiff and Rob Waller of the Reading  simplification centre were among the speakers.
An interesting contribution with regard to Inclusive Design came from Colette Jeffrey, who presented as an example the legible london project and future applications of information-inclusive-design.
Max Gadney, (Commissioning Executive in BBC Vision)  illustrated some information graphic projects. He also speaks about sharing research in the information designer community.
Borries Schwesinger, author of “Formulare gestalten”, presented a comparative analysis of online services offered by European governments: they complicate life and probablty we have to be patient.
Boag Associates, Text Matters and Studio Lift, all dealing with document design, were attending.
Regarding complex system mapping and data visualization, the next upcoming meeting will be the DD4D (Data Design for Decision) Conference in Paris in June.

Density design joined the twitter community!
We won’t use any Plug-in to upload our posts, we care for handmade processes.
We won’t twit too frequently, we prefer low rhythms.
We will always answer your replies, we love to discuss and networking.
We will twit all the blog’s contents and even more, we prefer addition to subtraction.
We will let you know what our people are doing, we value the same the parts and the whole.
We will never use twitter as a marketing tool, we believe in the power of opinion.

Ops! That’s more than 140 characters…