Mainstreaming Information
Lisa Strausfeld
Christian Marc Schmidt
Interactive Telecommunications Program
NYU Tisch School of the Arts
Spring 2009
overview / documentation / resources
titleauthortypedescriptionyear
10x10 Jonathan Harris visualization “10x10” is an interactive exploration of the words and pictures that define the time. 2004 
Anemone Ben Fry visualization Using the process of organic information design to visualize the changing structure of a web site, juxtaposed with usage information. 2000 
Apartment Martin Wattenberg visualization “Apartment” is a series of closely related works exploring the relation between language and space, building 2D and 3D “apartments” in response to the viewer’s typing. 2001 
Aspen Moviemap Michael Naimark visualization The first interactive “Moviemap” was produced at MIT in the late 1970s in Aspen, Colorado. 1978 
Bio Mapping Christian Nold visualization People re-explore their local area by walking the neighborhood with a device that records the wearer’s Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), and on their return a map is created which visualizes points of high and low arousal. 2004 
Carnivore Alexander Galloway/RSG visualization “Carnivore” is a surveillance tool for data networks. 2001 
citymurmur.org Giorgio Caviglia, Marco Quaggiotto, Donato Ricci, Gaia Scagnetti visualization “CityMurmur” aims at addressing maps and diagrams not as passive representation of realities but as tools for interpretation and action. 2009 
Color Code Martin Wattenberg visualization The artwork is an interactive map of more than 33,000 words. Each word has been assigned a color based on the average color of images found by a search engine. 2005 
Copernica Martin Wattenberg visualization Visualizes a sampling of work from the NASA Art Program. 2001 
Darfur John Maeda visualization Simple text-based visualization of dead in Darfur. 2006 
Gapminder Hans Rosling visualization “Gapminder” unveils the beauty of statistical time series by converting boring numbers into enjoyable, animated and interactive graphics. 2006 
History Flow Martin Wattenberg visualization “History Flow” is a tool for visualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors. 2003 
Illuminated Averages Jim Campbell visualization “Illuminated Averages” are a series of images displayed in light boxes in which each image is created by averaging all of the frames of a moving sequence. 2000 
Mark Lombardi Mark Lombardi visualization Six years before his death Lombardi switched to the pencil diagrams of crime and conspiracy networks. 1994 
Moodstats K10K visualization “Moodstats” is an application that allows you to quickly record & rate how your day has been in six different categories. 2003 
Napoleon's March Charles Joseph Minard visualization This map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon’s army in the Russian campaign of 1812. 1869 
Newsmap Marcos Weskamp visualization “Newsmap” is an application that visually reflects the constantly changing landscape of the Google News news aggregator. 2004 
New York Talk Exchange Aaron Koblin visualization “New York Talk Exchange” illustrates the global exchange of information in real time by visualizing volumes of AT&T long distance telephone and IP (Internet Protocol) data flowing between New York and cities around the world. 2008 
Pockets Full of Memories George LeGrady visualization “Pockets Full of Memories” is an interactive installation that consists of a data collection station where the public takes a digital image of an object, adds descriptive keywords, and rates its properties using a touchscreen. 2003 
SmartMoney Map of the Market Martin Wattenberg visualization The “Map of the Market” can show the changing stock prices of over 500 publicly-traded companies on a single screen. 1998 
Stock Market Planetarium Joshua Portway and Lise Autogena visualization Audiences are immersed in a world of real-time stock market activity, represented as the night sky, full of stars that glow as trading takes place on particular stocks. 2000 
TextArc Brad Paley visualization “TextArc” is a visual represention of an entire text on a single page. 2002 
Jason Salavon Jason Salavon visualization Using software processes of his own design, Jason Salavon generates and reconfigures masses of communal material to present new perspectives on the familiar. 1997 
The Dumpster Golan Levin visualization “The Dumpster” is an interactive online visualization that attempts to depict a slice through the romantic lives of American teenagers. 2006 
The Most Wanted Paintings Komar and Melamid visualization “The Most Wanted Paintings”, as well as “The Least Wanted Paintings”, reflect the artists’ interpretation of a professional market research survey about aesthetic preferences and taste in painting. 1995 
The Secret Lives of Numbers Golan Levin visualization Determines the relative popularity of every integer between 0 and one million. 2002 
The Shape of Song Martin Wattenberg visualization The custom software in this work draws musical patterns in the form of translucent arches, allowing viewers to see the shape of any musical composition available on the Web. 2001 
The Sheep Market Aaron Koblin visualization “The Sheep Market” is a collection of 10,000 sheep created by workers using Amazon’s “Mechanical Turk” platform. 2007 
The Smaller Picture Kevan Davis visualization An emergent art project visualizes collective drawings by the online community. 2002 
The Whale Hunt Jonathan Harris visualization An experiment in storytelling. Photographs are presented in a framework that tells the moment-to-moment story of a whale hunt. 2007 
They Rule Josh On visualization “They Rule” allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top companies in the US in 2004. 2004 
United Shapes of America (Maps Drawn by Las Vegas Teenagers) Kim Dingle visualization An oil painting showing individual maps of the US as drawn by a group of teenagers. 1991 
Valence Ben Fry visualization This piece is a visual representation of the algorithm most commonly used for genome searches. 2002 
Visual Thesaurus Thinkmap visualization The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. 1997 
Visualization of Flight Patterns Aaron Koblin visualization Data from the U.S. Federal aviation administration processed to create animations of flight traffic patterns and density. 2005 
We Feel Fine Jonathan Harris visualization Every few minutes, “We Feel Fine” searches newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. 2005 
Wegzeit Dietmar Offenhuber visualization “Wegzeit” is a project about Los Angeles and how it is transformed when brought to relative space. 2002 
Worldprocessor Ingo Günther visualization “Worldprocessor” is a series of painted globes reflecting data available and valid at the time of their origin. 1988 
Zipdecode Ben Fry visualization geographic mapping of zipcodes 2004 
Digg Labs Stamen Design visualization Labs projects look beneath the surface of the Digg community’s activities. 2006 
Trulia Hindsight Stamen Design visualization Trulia Hindsight is an animated map of homes in the United States from Trulia. The animations use the year the properties were built to show the growth of streets, neighborhoods and cities over time. 2007 
Computational Information Design Ben Fry text Ben Fry’s MIT PhD Thesis. 2004 
InfoVis Tests Bradford Paley text What makes something “Information Visualization?” 2008 
Information Visualization Colin Ware text “Information Visualization: Perception for Design” explores the art and science of why we see objects the way we do. 2004 
Seeing is believing: Information visualization and the debate over global warming David Womack text David Womack on visualizing climate change. 2006 
The Power of Maps Denis Wood text Denis Wood unmasks the map for what it is: a communication tool imbedded in culture, history, selected perspectives and bias. 1992 
Visual Explanations Edward Tufte text “Visual Explanations” centers on dynamic data—information that changes over time. 1997 
Envisioning Information Edward Tufte text “Envisioning Information” explores information visualization with an emphasis on maps and cartography. 1990 
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information Edward Tufte text “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information” focuses on charts and graphs that display numerical information. 1983 
Beautiful Evidence Edward Tufte text  2006 
Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff and Mark Johnson text Metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. 1980 
System Esthetics Jack Burnham text Burnham describes a new form of art, centered not around materiality but around relationships between people and their environment. 1968 
The Agency of Mapping (from Mappings by Denis Cosgrove) James Corner text Corner writes about mapping as a critical practice situated in a cultural context. 1999 
Else/Where: Mapping Janet Abrams & Peter Hall text “Else/Where: Mapping” explores the importance of maps as aids to navigation, understanding, and cultural representation. 2006 
The Value of Visualization Jarke van Wijk text Van Wijk explains the value of visualization as a science, a technology, and as art. 2008 
A Marginal System: Collecting (from “The System of Objects”) Jean Baudrillard text Excerpt from “The System of Objects” dealing with collecting. 1968 
The System of Objects Jean Baudrillard text “The System of Objects” offers a cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society. Baudrillard classifies the everyday objects of the “new technical order” as functional, nonfunctional and metafunctional. 1968 
The Anti-Sublime Ideal in Data Art Lev Manovich text Manovich describes data art as a method for bringing those things outside the scale of human perception into the realm of our experience, considering it “anti-sublime”, in contrast to for instance Romantic art, which considered the sublime unrepresentable. 2002 
Database as Symbolic Form Lev Manovich text Manovich describes a database aesthetic. 2001 
Artistic Data Visualization: Beyond Visual Analytics Martin Wattenberg text Wattenberg writes about data visualization that goes beyond scientific analysis aiming instead to be seen as expressive/conceptual/critical. 2007 
Critical Visualization Peter Hall text Peter Hall takes a critical look at visualization as a science, a technology, and an art, following the model proposed by Jarke van Wijk. 2008 
Information Graphics Robert Harris text A compendium of information graphic techniques. 2000 
Mythologies Roland Barthes text In this collection of essays, Barthes analyses the symbolism and mythologies inherent in the popular culture of the time. 1972 
Melancholy Objects (from “On Photography”) Susan Sontag text Sontag describes photography as producing artifacts that have the status of found object, simultaneously functioning as art and documentation. 1977 
On Photography Susan Sontag text Sontag expresses her views on the history and present-day role of photography in capitalist societies as of the 1970s. 1977 
Aesthetics of Information Visualization Warren Sack text Sack analyzes information visualization based on the aesthetics of the sublime, the 'anti-sublime', and the aesthetics of administration or governance. 2007 
Businessweek—The Power of the Visual Ben Fry presentation Fry talks about Processing as a solution for making small tools to answer questions about data. It enables rapid prototyping—building something in to ask a question about the data, and building something else in response to the previous outcome. 2008 
Democratizing Visualization (IDEA 2008) Fernanda Viegas presentation Viegas talks about leveling the playing field to creating data visualization with new tools, such as IBM’s Many Eyes. 2006 
Patterns & Sensemaking George Siemens presentation Siemens explains the role of visualization as sensemaking. 2007 
Hans Rosling at TED Hans Rosling presentation Hans Rosling demonstrates Gapminder at TED. 2006 
Jonathan Harris at TED Jonathan Harris presentation Jonathan Harris presents his work and philosophy at TED. 2007 
Essential ActionScript 3.0 Colin Moock text  2007 
Processing: A Programming Handbook for Designers and Artists Casey Reas and Ben Fry text  2007 
Ask E.T. Edward Tufte general reference   
Gallery of Information Visualization Michael Friendly general reference   
Information Aesthetics Andrew Vande Moere general reference   
InfoVis.net  general reference   
Many Eyes IBM general reference   
Parsons Info-Vis Database Arno Klein general reference   
Processing Casey Reas and Ben Fry  general reference   
Swivel  general reference   
UC Berkeley Visualization Lab  general reference   
Visual Complexity Manuel Lima general reference   
Worldmapper  general reference “Worldmapper” is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.  
Amazon Mechanical Turk Requester  data source   
Bay Area public transit schedules data Michal Migurski data source   
Biomapping data Christian Nold data source   
CIA World Factbook Online  data source   
CLUI Land Use Database  data source   
DayLife API  data source   
Digg API  data source   
Environment XML Datastreams  data source   
Flickr API  data source   
Freebase API  data source   
Geo-Names  data source   
Google APIs  data source   
GovTrack  data source   
Mapping Globalization Transaction Database  data source   
MetaCarta Labs: Geospatial Parsing APIs  data source   
National Climatic Data Center  data source   
Trulia API  data source   
University of Dayton Temperature Data Archive  data source   
United Nations Statistics Division  data source   
US Census Bureau: International Data Base (IDB)  data source   
US DOT: National Bridge Inventory  data source   
We Feel Fine API Jonathan Harris data source   
Weather Channel API  data source   
Wikipedia Datadump  data source   
Worldmapper Data Sources  data source   
Yahoo! TagMaps API  data source   
Arc Diagrams Martin Wattenberg visualization method  2002 
Chromograms Martin Wattenberg visualization method  2007 
Hyperbolic Tree Visualization John Lamping, Ramana Rao, and Peter Pirolli visualization method  1995 
Matrix Charts Martin Wattenberg visualization method   
Network Diagrams Martin Wattenberg visualization method   
Periodic Table of Visualization Methods  visualization method   
Sankey Diagrams Uni Weimar visualization method  2005 
Sparklines Edward Tufte visualization method  2004 
Second Generation Tag Clouds Joe Lamantia visualization method  2006 
Treemaps Ben Shneiderman visualization method  2001