Marcin Składanek

Isotype (1925–1971) and Many Eyes (2007–2015) are two projects that share the intention of using data visualization methods and techniques as a tool for democratizing knowledge, although they differ in a considerable set of features and a large distance of time. The main goal of the creators of Isotype Otto Neurath and Marie Neurath was to overcome cultural divisions and educational stratification with an effective visual method of communicating important social facts, promoting specific values, or showing the rapid social, cultural and economic changes at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, Many Eyes is an open social participation environment (web application) that gives users the ability to share data resources, generate their own visualizations and discuss the procedures for their creation and cognitive effects of their use. The authors of the system are Fernanda B. Viégas, Martin Wattenberg – two researchers and designers who have been consistently exploring the “social life of visualization” for several years. Isotype and Many Eyes – as examples of socially engaged design – are analyzed in this text on two important dimensions: firstly – how the complex conditions of design practice have been integrated (design skills and teams, design procedures and methods, technological and institutional resources); scenarios for the transfer of identified challenges, threats and barriers to a specific solution that responds to the real needs of users; secondly – scenarios for the transfer of identified challenges, threats and barriers to a specific solution that responds to the user needs. 

Recenzja

Mariusz Pisarski, Xanadu. Hipertekstowe przemiany prozy, Korporacja Ha!art, Kraków 2013, ss. 296.

Material without qualities – digital technology as a metamedium   
Today, we witness two generative forces of digital media culture meeting – flexible, open, easy-to-use digital technology and large-scale social communication, sharing of in- formation, knowledge and media representations. These two forces are equally important in media convergence and divergence, but also tightly coupled.
This paper traces the root of “metamedium” concept, developed in late 70s by Alan Kay, to show that at the beginning two crucial aspects of digital revolution were intentionally connected within the project of creating “personal dynamic media”. Thinking of digital technology as a “material without qualities” – as a open to any transformation, mutation and extension metamedium – has significant impact on new media discourse. Not only because it reveals essential difference between “old” and “new media”, but also because it exposes solid ground for practices od media hybridization, innovation or – using Lev Manovich notion – process of “deep remixability”.

Dyskusja wokół książki

Comparative Textual Media. Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era (2013), pod redakcją N. K. Hayles i J. Pressman