Dis-Information-Visualization Workshop Summary / Helsinki Sep 2012

The 1st Open Knowledge Festival was also the host of the 1st Dis-Information-Visualization workshop, a critical attempt to actively explore the dark side of information visualization. In the full day workshop (led by me, Mushon Zer-Aviv, and organized by Pixelache and the Mushrooming Network) 4 groups were encouraged to lie with infographics. Rather than falsifying the data, the dis-info-visualizers have manipulated its meaning by creating truthful, yet misleading representations.

We started with an introductory presentation offering a few critical tools through which to investigate (and generate) visual manipulation. The talk suggested that rather than looking at data information visualization as “Beautiful Evidence” (to quote the title of a book by Edward Tufte) we should read them as often beautiful and sometimes even seductive arguments.

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At the Open Knowledge Festival, Helsinki

click to enlarge This week I’ll be presenting Wikipedia Illustrated and participating in other events at Helsinki’s Open Knowledge Festival. I would love to see you there: Monday, Sep 17, 5pm Open Publishing and Visual Free Culture – A satellite event hosted by M-Cult and Pixelache, discussing Collaborative Futures, Wikipedia Illustrated and more Thursday, Sep 20th, 4pm … Continue reading At the Open Knowledge Festival, Helsinki

סדנה בבצלאל – המרחב הישראלי: תאוריית הקשר

English notice: This post is a part of the “Israeli Sphere: Connection Theory” a workshop I lead in Bezalel Art and Design School in Jerusalem, Israel. The workshop will be led in Hebrew, but I will try to post its results here with some English to accompany it too. Here’s a short description in English:

The Israeli Sphere: Connection Theory

1948, The water level in the sea of Galilee, Bublil, Shema Yisrael, what’s the connection?
Through a design-research workshop we will place information bits lost inside the web of the “Israeli sphere” in an attempt to find out, where is this Israel sphere anyway? How to design inside it? Towards it? From it? Students will work in small groups and will conduct a networked research following cultural, logical and visual connections. The work methodology will be divided into three steps: Content, Structure & Presentation, inspired by new approaches of indexing, linking and delivering information online. In spite of the networked inspiration and practice, the output of the workshop is not limited to this medium or the other and the workshop is open to students from different disciplines as long as they are ready to work hard, sleep little and experiment with this new and challenging process.

תיאור הסדנה

1948, מפלס הכנרת, בובליל, שמע ישראל… מה הקשר?
במהלך סדנת עיצוב-חוקר נמקם פיסות מידע אובדות בתוך רשת ה”מרחב הישראלי” במטרה לגלות איפה זה בכלל המרחב הישראלי הזה? כיצד מעצבים בתוכו? לתוכו? מתוכו? סטודנטים יעבדו בקבוצות קטנות וינהלו מחקר מרושת בעקבות הקשרים תרבותיים, לוגיים וחזותיים. מתודולוגיית העבודה תחולק לשלושה שלבים: תוכן, מבנה ותצוגה בהשראה מגישות חדשות לתיוג, חיווט והגשה של מידע ברשת. על אף ההשראה והפרקטיקה המרושתת, תוצרי הסדנה אינם מוגבלים למדיום זה או אחר והסדנה פתוחה לסטודנטים מדיסיפלינות שונות כל עוד הם מוכנים לעבוד קשה, לישון מעט ולהתנסות בצורת עבודה חדשה ומאתגרת. Continue reading “סדנה בבצלאל – המרחב הישראלי: תאוריית הקשר”