Understanding Information: a talk by Matt Kirshenbaum
[Delivered for the English Department and the Transcriptions Project at UCSB on February 7, 2000]

Here is a list of the slide/images used in Professor Kirshenbaum's talk

Start
Don Byrd, Poetics of the Common Knowledge: "[Information] theory represented a level abstraction that was utterly unknown. This was not a theory among theories, not even an immensely powerful theory among theories. Information and the formal discoveries inside of which it was defined were in a sense the end of theories; not that suddenly this theory had it right, but that knowing now was a different kind of thing."

Slide 2: Graphic design by David Carson

Slide 3: Photorealistic techniques in computer graphics

Slide 4: Dennis Balk, Data Accumulation Print-Outs (1997)

Slide 5: Scientific visualization: fluid dynamics

Slide 6: Typographic information landscape, Muriel Cooper

Slide 7:
Dynamic queries (Shneiderman):
visual presentation of the query's components
visual presentation of results
rapid, incremental, and reversible control of the query selection by pointing, not typing
immediate and continuous feedback

Slide 8: Starfield map: Shneiderman and Ahlberg's FilmFinder

Slide 10: Ways of Seeing

Slide 11: Populated Information Terrains (PITs), University of Nottingham

Slide 12: Information visualization: the stock market (MarketMap)

Slide 13: Units of Measurement

1 exabyte = 1000 petabytes
1 petabyte = 1000 terabytes
1 terabyte = 1000 gigabytes
1 gigabyte = 1000 megabytes
1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes
1 kilobyte = 1000 bytes

Slide 14: Starlight visual information analysis environment, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Slide 15: Thomas A. DeFanti, Maxine Brown, and Bruce H. McCormick, authors of Visualization in Scientific Computing (NSF, 1987): "With the advent of raster graphics, researchers can convert entire fields of variables (representing density, pressure, velocity, entropy, and so on) to color images. The information conveyed to the researcher undergoes a qualitative change [my emphasis] because it brings the eye-brain system, with its great pattern-recognition capabilities, into play in a way that is impossible with purely numeric data." . . . "Much of modern science can no longer be communicated in print. DNA sequences, molecular models, medical imaging scans, bran maps, simulated flights through a terrain, simulations of fluid flow, and so on, all need to be expressed and taught visually."

Slide 16: Scientific visualization: the ozone layer

Slide 17: Pixar Studios

Slide 18: Dynamic queries: housing values in a real estate market

Slide 19: Basic Resources
On-line Library of Information Visualization Environments (OLIVE): http://otal.umd.edu/Olive/
An Atlas of Cyberspaces: http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html
EVL: Electronic Visualization Laboratory (UIC): http://www.evl.uic.edu/EVL/index.html
Open DX Gallery: http://www.opendx.org/
Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center (Georgia Tech): http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/

Slide 20: Warren Waggenspack, Jr., SIGGRAPH 99 Conference Chair: "After more than three decades of astounding technical, creative, and artistic achievement, the field of computer graphics and interactive technology has matured [ . . . ] It now reaches a broad audience and fosters a unique bond between a diverse collection of communities including education, science, art, medicine, industry, government, and entertainment."

Slide 21: Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad (1963)

Slide 22: Understanding Information
Matthew G. Kirschenbaum Department of English
Research in Computing for Humanities Group
University of Kentucky
7 February 2000 Browse slides by clicking the Transcriptions logo below. Interested persons may mail Matthew Kirschenbaum for a copy of the full text of the paper.

Slide 23: Walt Disney's Tron (1983)

Slide 24: 1885 French train schedule by E.J. Marey

Slide 25: Cartia's ThemeScape system

Slide 26: Kirschenbaum, "A White Paper on Information"

Slide 27: Visualization defined

Slide 28: Information visualization: The World Wide Web (URLGRAPH)

Slide 29: Ben Shneiderman and Christopher Ahlberg, "Visual Information Seeking: Tight Coupling of Dynamic Query Filters with Starfield Displays" (1994): "[Visual Information Seeking] is distinguished from familiar query composition and information retrieval because of its emphasis on rapid filtering to reduce result sets, progressive refinement of search parameters, continuous reformation of goals, and visual scanning to identify results."

Slide 30: Experimental information landscape interface to Yahoo! (VRML)

Slide 31: Writing

Slide 32: Graphic design by David Carson