Computational visualization for critical thinking

Main Article Content

Catherine Griffiths

Abstract

This paper looks back at historical precedents for how computational systems and ideas have been visualized as a means of access to and engagement with a broader audience, and to develop a new more tangible language to address abstraction. These precedents share a subversive ground in using a visual language to provoke new ways of engaging with about complex ideas. Two new approaches to visualizing algorithmic systems are proposed for the emerging context of algorithmic ethics in society, looking at prototypical algorithms in computer vision and machine learning systems, to think through the meaning created by algorithmic structure and process. The aim is to use visual design to provoke new kinds of thinking and criticality that can offer opportunities to address algorithms in their increasingly more politicized role today. These new approaches are developed from an arts research perspective to support critical thinking and arts knowledge through creative coding and interactive design.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Abelson, H., & diSessa, A. A. (1981). Turtle Geometry: The computer as a medium for exploring mathematics, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

Aneesh, A. (2006). Virtual Migration: The programming of globalization, Durham: Duke University Press

Angwin, J. Larson, Jeff., Mattu, Surya., & Kirchner, Lauren. (2016). Machine Bias. ProPublica, May 23, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.propublica.org/article/machinebias-risk-assessments-in-criminalsentencing

Fishwick, P, A. (2006). Aesthetic Computing, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

Fredkin, E. (1990) Digital Mechanics: An information process based on reversible universal cellular automata, Physica D, 45(1-3), 245-270. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2789(90)90186-S

Gips, J. (1999). Computer Implementation of Shape Grammars, The NSF/MIT Workshopon Shape Computation, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Langton, C. G. (1986). Studying artificial life with cellular automata. Physica D, 22(1-3) 120-149. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2789(86)90237-X

Lindenmayer, A., & Prusinkiewicz, P. (1990). The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants, New York: Springer Verlag

Papert, S. (1993). Mindstorms: Children, computers and powerful ideas (2nd ed.), New York: Basic Books

Papert, S. (1994). Foreword. Mitchel Resnick, Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams: Explorations in massively parallel microworlds (p.x). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

Resnick, M. (1994). Turtles, Termites and Traffic Jams: Explorations in massively parallel microworlds, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

Stafford, B. M. (1999). Visual Analogy: Consciousness as the art of connecting, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press

Thorp, J. (2017). You Say Data, I Say System. Hacker Noon. July 13, 2017. Retrieved from https://hackernoon.com/you-say-data-i-saysystem-54e84aa7a421

Wettle, R. (2010). Software Systems as Cities (Doctoral dissertation). University of Lugano, Switzerland

Wolfram, S. (2002). A New Kind of Science, Wolfram Media, Inc.