Visual Interpretations – Aesthetics, Methods, and Critiques of Information Visualization in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences :: May 20-22, 2010 :: HyperStudio, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, MA :: Call for Proposals: Deadline: March 31, 2010. Free but you must Register.

How do visual representations of complex data help humanities scholars ask new questions? How does visual rhetoric shape the way we relate to documents and artifacts? And, can we recompose the field of digital humanities to integrate more dynamic analytical methods into humanities research?

HyperStudio’s Visual Interpretations conference will bring digital practitioners and humanities scholars together with experts in art and design to consider the past, present, and future of visual epistemology in digital humanities. The goal is to get beyond the notion that information exists independently of visual presentation, and to rethink visualization as an integrated analytical method in humanities scholarship. By fostering dialogue and critical engagement, this conference aims to explore new ways to design data and metadata structures so that their visual embodiments function as “humanities tools in digital environments.” (Johanna Drucker)

We welcome submissions from practitioners and theorists of digital humanities as well as such connected
disciplines as art, design, visual culture, museum studies, and computer science.

Topics include:

• Expressive and artistic dimensions of visualizations
• Subjectivity and objectivity in information visualization
• Dynamic/multidimensional visualizations and user collaboration
• Social media and contextualized visualization
• Cultural history of visual epistemology
• Limits and affordances of the translation from data to visualization
• 2D and 3D visualizations of historical/social/political data
• Visualization across media and the archive
• Digital visual literacy & accessibility
• Relationships between database and interface
• Alternative modes of data representation.

Submissions: We are inviting submissions for the following conference formats:

• Papers with 15 minutes of presentation and short discussions (12 slots)
• Short presentations, so called “6/4s” with 6 minutes of presentation and 4 minutes of discussion (18 slots available)
• Mini-Workshops, 30 minutes each (6 slots)
• Demos and Posters (30 slots)

Deadline for submissions: March 31, 2010

Click here to submit your 250 word abstract along with relevant links via the submission form.

Organizers: MIT HyperStudio for Digital Humanities (http://hyperstudio.mit.edu) and MIT Communications Forum (http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/).