Lecture 9: Feel the Visual

Before you read any further I’d like you to click here. You don’t even have to read the article, just look at the picture and open yourself to your emotions. Feel the effects of the visual.

Visualising data is an extremely effective way of explaining information. Having metaphysical concepts be seen by the naked eye makes it that much more real to us, since we generally accept what we see, and don’t accept what we don’t see. This gives visualised data the perception of accuracy, sometimes however, this can be unreliably misleading – how many times have we seen something, and been so sure of it, only to find that we’d gotten it all wrong?

Nevertheless, visualisation is used elaborately in scientific research to better communicate findings to the public. This can come in the form of graphs, diagrams, sculptures and pictures to name a few. Now, let’s get back to the picture we saw at the beginning of this post. This article informs the public of the effects of global warming, more specifically, the consequences on the now endangered polar bears. The picture of the lone polar bear clinging on to its home effectively uses visualisation to relate a moving notion of climate change that tugs at our heart strings. The publication of this article allows the social body to engage with the issue with our own eyes, permitting a more personal connection than any of those charity workers who try to catch you on the street could hope for. After all, a picture says a thousand words. The scientific world is proving this true.

The NASA Scientific VisualisationStudio is a perfect example of turning information originally invisible to the naked eye to visible graphics. They aim to promote “a greater understanding of Earth and space science research activities” by allowing us to see, and hence better understand, things that might have gone unseen otherwise. Visualisation can change our perceptions, and thus the perceptions of the public sphere, so that we can see the world from a fresh perspective, and perhaps a different angle. That said, visualised information is not always reliable and conclusive (The Global Warming Skeptics versus the Scientific Consensus, 2009), where the same visual data can have completely different interpretations.

Debord (1967) argues that society consists of false images that lure people into the claws of capitalism by conforming and controlling passive consumers in the system. Institutions can hence govern the public through purposely providing information that can easily be misconstrued so as to satisfy their materialistic natures. Basically, enjoy the pretty images, let them enhance your sense of information data, but remember that this increased understanding of issues comes hand in hand with an increased risk of miscommunication.

References:

[online] Anon. (2008) ‘Struggling polar bears put on endangered list’, Metro.co.uk, 15 May, accessed 7 May, 2013 http://www.metro.co.uk/news/147937-struggling-polar-bears-put-on-endangered-list

[online] Anon. (2009) ‘The Global Warming Skeptics versus the Scientific Consensus’, Information is Beautiful, 12 Dec, accessed 7 May, 2013 <http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/climate-change-deniers-vs-the-consensus/>

[online] Debord, G., (n.d.) ‘Unity and Division Within Appearances’, The Society of the Spectacle, accessed 7 May, 2013 <http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/3.htm>

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2013), ‘NASA Scientific Visualization Studio’, 4 March, accessed 7 May, 2013 <http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/>