The Aesthetics of Environmental Visualizations

More Than Information Ecstasy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2428232
AutoresHeather Houser (0000-0003-2840-3859)
Año2014
Volumen26
Número2
Páginas319-337
Fecha de publicación2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPublic Culture (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0899-2363 • E-ISSN: 1527-8018
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/08992363-2392084
OpenAlexW2312192991
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas11
Referencias citadas11

Information visualizations (or “infovis”) have become a ubiquitous cultural form in the digital age. Environmental artists and activists increasingly trust in the ability of infovis to produce knowledge about environmental issues and to promote audience engagement. But does infovis elicit more than shock, admiration, and the pleasures of “infogasm”? Analyzing infovis through its aesthetic features, this essay raises the question of how the aesthetic form of any environmental artwork carries audiences from perception to involvement, arguably one of environmental criticism’s most formidable concerns. The essay examines two visualization projects, Aaron Koblin’s Flight Patterns and WWF’s The Timber Trade, focusing on their use of the aerial perspective and the line. These features speak at once to an uneasy globalism and to values of simplicity, instantaneity, and transparency. Ultimately, the essay argues that infovis can offer a misplaced sense of mastery and sidestep the challenges of uncertainty and misinformation

Admiration · Aesthetics · Art · Criticism · Perspective (graphical · Political science · Sociology · Transparency (behavior · Visual arts · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Psychology · Public Spaces through Art · Law · Social Psychology