Research Projects
Conception of the Research Line «Representation and Visualization of Knowledge»
Project director: Dietmar Offenhuber
Project description
The institute’s Research Line C explores opportunities for taking advantage of the potential of information visualization, interactive interfaces and visual analytical methods for the purposes of media art research. The field of inquiry is an interdisciplinary one, uniting working methods and research standards from art history, information technology and media design. The goal is to develop interactive visual tools for representing and generating knowledge. These tools will be able to illustrate complex relationships that cannot be conveyed using conventional methods.
Visualization fulfills two basic tasks here: supporting research processes and representing research results. These two tasks must not however be regarded separately since they strongly influence one another. The aim of the work in this research line is to create continuity between the generation and presentation of data – with tools that use a common visual language.
The significance of visualization for media art research is obvious: media art is primarily audiovisual, but is nonetheless usually addressed critically by means of linear text. Visualization is not meant to replace text-based representations, however, but instead to support them in many relevant areas. This can be done using a series of modular tools that engage the various research themes and methods.
When these tools are used together, it will be possible to paint a meaningful picture of the data stored in digital archives and how it is interrelated, while differentiating between the data according to the strength and characteristics of the relations. While traditional methods of representation often limit the analysis to the essential core of the information, interactive visual tools make it possible to draw a more modulated picture – doing justice to the ambiguity and complexity typical of data structures.