Exhibition in Berlin: Die Chronologiemaschine - Eine visuelle Revolution

I am very happy to be contributing to an exhibition in Berlin created by PD Dr Astrit Schmidt-Burkhardt. It is Die Chronologiemaschine - Eine visuelle Revolution des 18. Jahrhunderts.

The exhibition includes items from the permanent collection of the Staatsbibliothek Berlin, several items belonging to Dr Schmidt-Burkhardt, and just two from me – but that does include my copy of the central work in the exhibition: the Chronology of Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg in book form.

The exhibition blurb, translated from German

What does history become? Who are the protagonists, what is passed on? The doctor and polymath Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg (1709-1779) wanted to record, graphically visualize and make available nothing less than comprehensive world history. To do this, he invented a machine made of paper and glue: the Chronology Machine. Its centrepiece was a horizontal panorama of world history well over sixteen metres long.

The exhibition shows the media-archaeological significance of the apparatus and the visual revolution it initiated: the unexpected boom in infographics in the Age of Enlightenment.

Opening dates and times

Friday 8 September – Sunday 8 October 2023

Tue-Sun 10am-6pm

Thu 10am-8pm

except public holidays

Admission is free

Location

Stabi Kulturwerk

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin

Unter den Linden 8

10117 Berlin

In July 2022, the Staatsbibliothek (Berlin State Library) opened a new exhibition area: the Stabi Kulturwerk makes diverse cultural heritage accessible and is a place for joint discovery and research. 

Link: exhibition website (in German)  

 

That copy of Barbeu-Dubourg's ‘Chronographie our Description des Tems’

Back in 2017, I noted that I had acquired an anonymous chronology that seems to be Barbeu-Dubourg's ‘Chronographie our Description des Tems’ of c1753.

Recently, my colleague Sarah Mercer, Special Collections Project Officer at the Royal College of Art, very kindly made some excellent scans of the pages.

Here is a link to the Google Drive folder where they are stored. Each scan is about 14,000 x 10,000 pixels.

Can I believe what I see?

Our article has at last been published in Interdisciplinary Science Reviews (9 months late!).

My profound thanks to fellow-authors Dr. Olivia Vane and Dr. Florian Kräutli, and to the Special Issue editor Dr. Mario Verdicchio.

Abstract

Questions of trust are increasingly important in relation to data and its use. The authors focus on humanities data and its visualization, through analysis of their own recent projects with museums, archives and libraries internationally. Their account connects the specifics of hands-on digital humanities work to larger epistemological questions. They discuss the sources of potential mistrust, and examine how different expectations and assumptions emerge depending on the use and user of the data; they offer a simple schema through which the implications may be traced. It is argued that vital issues of trust can be engaged with through design, which, rather than being conceived as a cosmetic finish, is seen as contributing insights and questions that affect the whole process. The article concludes with recommendations intended to be useful in both theory and practice.

The article builds on the work that Florian and Olivia did as PhD students at the Royal College of Art, London, and in their subsequent roles at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, the Swiss Art Research Infrastructure, University of Zurich and on the Living with Machines project at the British Library.

The article is Gold Open Access. 

You can read it here:

• The Special Issue
• Direct link to the article

Citation: Stephen Boyd Davis, Olivia Vane & Florian Kräutli (2021) Can I believe what I see? Data visualization and trust in the humanities, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 522-546

The articles in the Special Issue are:

• Mario Verdicchio (2021) Computing in this world, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 427-429
• Deborah G. Johnson (2021) What is the relationship between computer technology and ethical issues?, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 430-439
• Fabio Fossa (2021) Artificial agency and the game of semantic extension, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 440-457
• Crystal Hall, Eric Chown & Fernando Nascimento (2021) A critical, analytical framework for the digital machine, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 458-476
• Patrick Egan (Pádraig Mac Aodhgáin) (2021) Insider or outsider? Exploring some digital challenges in ethnomusicology, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 477-500
• Marcelo Vianna (2021) Coordinating users to generate the base of the national industry – CAPRE’s role in controlling imports of computers and peripherals (1976–1979), Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 501-521
• Stephen Boyd Davis, Olivia Vane & Florian Kräutli (2021) Can I believe what I see? Data visualization and trust in the humanities, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 522-546
• Sébastien Plutniak (2021) Assyrian merchants meet nuclear physicists: history of the early contributions from social sciences to computer science. The case of automatic pattern detection in graphs (1950s–1970s), Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 547-568
• Juan Luis Gastaldi & Luc Pellissier (2021) The calculus of language: explicit representation of emergent linguistic structure through type-theoretical paradigms, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 569-590
• Adam Trybus (2021) Russell and the foundations of qualitative spatial reasoning: the first steps, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 46:4, 591-608

Congratulating Dr Vane

Prof Stephen Boyd Davis, Olivia Vane, Prof Jane Winters, and Prof Marian Dörk (on screen)

On 22 November 2019, Olivia Vane, PhD candidate in Innovation Design Engineering at the RCA, passed her viva – with no revisions required. She will graduate formally at the College’s Winter Convocation in February.

The examiners were:

• Jane Winters, Professor of Digital Humanities & Pro-Dean for Libraries at the School of Advanced Study University of London.
• Marian Dörk, Research Professor for Information Visualisation at the Urban Futures Institute of Fachhochschule Potsdam and co-director of UCLAB (via Skype)

The chair was my colleague Dr Sarah Cheang. I am very grateful to her and to the examiners. Thank you also to my fellow-supervisor, Dr John Stevens.

As observing supervisor, I was privileged to witness a fascinating discussion of key topics in the visualisation of cultural data, focused on value and trust.  

The full text of Olivia’s thesis is available here: Timeline Design For Visualising Cultural Heritage Data.

You can learn more about Olivia here.

Off to Potsdam for Information+ conference 2018...

Next week, 20 to 21 October 2018, Olivia Vane and I will be at the Information+ conference at University of Applied Sciences Potsdam (FH Potsdam), Germany.  We will be asking what design contributes – or should contribute – to information design, especially in the digital humanities.  Here is our abstract:

Designers — what are they good for (in data visualisation)?

Our focus is the digital humanities, especially visualisation of datasets such as text archives and object collections data in museums. The name “digital humanities” implies just two disciplines, computing and the humanities. What is the designer’s role? Collectively we should be able to explain what our contribution is —especially when some may fear our replacement by AI systems. We argue that there are particular aspects of designing that are distinctive and can enable more effective visualisations to be produced: (1) expertise in the visual articulation of meaning, (2) human-centric methods, and (3) the quick and adaptable use of low-fidelity early prototyping. We base our argument especially on the idea of design as a form of inquiry or research, and illustrate the three benefits using our recent interactive data visualisations with organisations including the Wellcome Library, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and V&A London. 

It looks a great programme and we expect real progress to emerge around other questions like value and trust in visualisation.

SATURDAY, 20 OCT

• Sandra Rendgen KEYNOTE Inventing the future, one visualization at a time
• Claudia Rebeca Méndez Escarza Mixtec pictorial manuscripts: A source of visual information
• Günther Schreder + Eva Mayr Quo vadis, Isotype?
• Sam Holleran A History of “visual literacy” campaigns
• Will Stahl-Timmins The BMJ visual abstracts
• Guillermina Noël + Jorge Frascara Designing an optimal document in the health sector
• Lightning talks: Sol Kawage; Adina Renner; Jessica Bellamy
• Olivia Vane + Stephen Boyd Davis Designers — what are they good for (in data visualisation)?
• Sarah Campbell Feeling numbers: The emotional impact of proximity techniques in visualization
• Doris Kosminsky + Jagoda Walny Belief at first sight: Data visualization and the rationalization of seeing
• Lightning talks: Sibylle Schlaich + Anita Meier; Valentina D’Efilippo; Nadieh Bremer
• Grga Basic We Can: Data driven project exploring the lives of NYC canners
• Kennedy Elliott Think like a journalist: Tips for stronger, clearer and more cohesive visual narratives
• Reuben Fischer-Baum + Chiqui Esteban KEYNOTE Working in a graphics visual storytelling team

SUNDAY, 21 OCT

• Fernanda Viégas + Martin Wattenberg KEYNOTE Data visualization for machine learning
• Christian Au + Christian Laesser + Stephan Thiel Peakspotting — a visual tool for managing the capacity of Germany’s rail traffic network
• Raphael Reimann Empathizing with AI: How to see like a selfdriving car
• Jesse Josua Benjamin + Claudia Müller-Birn Designing for algorithm awareness in peer production systems
• Pedro M. Cruz Simulated dendrochronology of immigrants and natural-borns in the United States, showing the fifty states (1790–2016)
• Richard Brath Techniques for adding diverse contextual data into visualizations
• Yvette Shen Visualizing philosophy: A modern design approach to understand I-Ching
• Kelly Murdoch-Kitt + Denielle J. Emans Participatory data visualizations support intercultural collaboration
• Anne Luther Qualitative data visualization: The Entity Mapper
• Lightning talks: Theodor Hillmann; Fritz Lekschas; Alec Barrett 
• Catherine D'Ignazio Data feminism
• Greg McInerny Lost in the universe of graphical objects? Critical visualisation, disciplinary myopias and the visualisation spectrum
• Ron Morrison KEYNOTE Decoding space: Liquid infrastructures

Conference website: http://informationplusconference.com/

Printing Time: Workshop on French Almanacs at Waddesdon Manor

Almanac ‘Calendrier Republican’ 1794. Photo: Waddesdon Manor

I will be speaking, among expert company, at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, UK on Monday 16th October 2017.

They have announced a workshop in conjunction with the exhibition Glorious Years: French Calendars from Louis XIV to the Revolution.  The workshop will explore themes around the production and consumption of French 17th-and 18th-century almanacs (in book and print formats), while also looking at the broader context of the history of Time and its depiction during this period.

The blurb says:

Our distinguished speakers are drawn from across disciplines. Confirmed participants include Stephen Boyd Davis (Royal College of Art), Adam Dant (artist), Rachel Jacobs (Waddesdon Manor), Maxime Préaud (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Véronique Sarrazin (Université d'Angers, Laboratoire CERHIO) and Matthew Shaw (Institute of Historical Research, UCL).

I will be talking about the changing conceptions of historical time and how that was represented graphically from the mid- through to the late eighteenth century.

There will be an opportunity to visit the exhibition during the day with curator Rachel Jacobs and artist Adam Dant.

To register an interest in attending please email diane.bellis [at] nationaltrust.org.uk. There is a charge of £25 for the day which covers all catering costs.  To secure a place, call the Waddesdon booking office 01296 653226 to pay using either a debit or credit card.

Waddesdon nearing completion in 1883. Photo: Waddesdon Manor

The exhibition from 22 March to 29 October 2017 includes 26 printed wall almanacs and 7 bound volumes.

Dr Florian Kräutli speaks at British Museum event. @AlumniRCA

It's good to see Florian Kräutli, formerly my PhD student at the Royal College of Art, and now Research Technology Officer at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, talking at the ResearchSpace Symposium ‘Building cultural heritage knowledge’ at the British Library tomorrow and Friday (27th and 28th July 2017).


The event is now full, but you can read about it here: Eventbrite

Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the conference highlights the challenges for sustainable knowledge building between cultural heritage institutions, universities and other interested audiences. Papers will include the principles, methodology, techniques and viewpoints of people and projects attempting to answer these questions and provide practical solutions.

12 July. Boyne? Aughrim? calendars!

It seems so appropriate that the very date of commemoration of the Battle of the Boyne is bound up with the same religious differences that underlay the battle itself. The Gregorian calendar was regarded by many protestants as a popish conspiracy.

From BBC History ‘The Battle of the Boyne’

The Battle of the Boyne was fought on 1 July 1690, according to the old Julian calendar. This was reformed and replaced with the Gregorian calendar across the British Empire in 1752, repositioning the 'date' of the Battle of the Boyne to 11 July. The method of altering historical dates was somewhat complicated, with eleven days being added to 'old style' dates occurring after 1700, but only ten days to those taking place before that.

There is some dispute over whether celebrating on 12 July is simply the result of a slight historical miscalculation, or a case of the Battle of the Boyne replacing the Battle of Aughrim (another important battle in the Williamite War which took place on 12 July in the Julian calendar) as the focus of commemoration. Either way, William's victory at the Battle of the Boyne has been celebrated on 12 July for over 200 years.

Eviatar Zerubavel’s 2003 Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past is excellent on our obsession with anniversaries.

Exploring the Cooper Hewitt collection with timelines and tags

Olivia Vane, AHRC-funded doctoral student supervised at the RCA by myself and Dr John Stevens, has been doing a great job this summer on an AHRC International Placement at the Copper Hewitt in New York.

She is continuing to pursue our core questions concerned with making visual sense of history – currently exploiting the tags that curators have applied to objects in the collection to draw out a range of different connections and narratives.  This week she is trialling the designs in a public space in the museum, and gathering feedback from visitors.

Many thanks to all at the Cooper Hewitt who are encouraging and supporting this important work.

Olivia's guest blog post: Cooper Hewitt Labs.



 

Scientiae conference 2017 @AcadScientiae

In April I shall have the pleasure of participating in the 2017 Scientiae conference at the University of Padua.

My presentation is:
‘Plain truth and common sense’ in Joseph Priestley’s 1765 Chart of Biography
Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) contributed significantly to visual historiography, developing forms of information visualisation in which events in time are organised diagrammatically in preference to textual tables or metaphoric figures. The emerging aesthetic was one of mechanisation, mathematisation and – influenced by geography and cartography – an increasing tendency to treat time as though it were directly analogous to space.  Abstemious presentations of events in a temporal space were preferred to rhetorical, metaphorical presentations of the shape of history.  This raises the question: why did Priestley’s 1765 Chart of Biography take the form it did?  The paper will trace answers through contemporary changes in visual and intellectual culture and by examining Priestley's personal disposition – informed as it was by a mix of his non-conformist religious convictions, his suspicion of rhetoric (‘sooner would I teach the art of poisoning than that of sophistry’¹), and his beliefs concerning the nature of human knowledge. The paper will investigate the roots of Priestley’s optimism when he anticipated that ‘plain truth’ if presented to our ‘common sense’ would lead inevitably to right understanding.²  He assumed that if knowledge is presented through ‘the language of the naked facts’ then they ‘cannot but be understood wherever they are known.’³ The argument will be articulated through analysis of the visual artefacts created by Priestley and his contemporaries, together with texts authored by Priestley in a range of disciplines including biblical exegesis, pedagogy and natural philosophy.

1. Joseph Priestley. 1777. A Course of Lectures on Oratory and Criticism. London: Johnson. Page 54.
2. Joseph Priestley. 1782. A History of the Corruptions of Christianity. London: Johnson. Vol.1. Page 171.
3. op. cit. p.114

Link to the conference pages

Another copy of Barbeu-Dubourg's Carte Chronographique

I was lucky recently to buy a copy of what seems almost certainly to be Barbeu-Dubourg's Carte Chronographique (see this post from 2009).  Sadly the 35 copper-engraved printed plates are mounted in a book, not in the 'machine chronologique' that the Princeton University Library has, but that would be too much to ask.

There are many small points of difference from the Princeton edition which I hope eventually to document. In the meantime, here are some preliminary rough photographs...

Barbeu-Dubourg's Carte Chronographique. The chart begins with God, Adam and Eve. The symbols next to the names are not the same as those in the Princeton copy. Collection and photo: Stephen Boyd Davis.

Barbeu-Dubourg's Carte Chronographique. A detail of the last entries including the Battle of Culloden 1746 and the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 1748. Collection and photo: Stephen Boyd Davis.

Barbeu-Dubourg's Carte Chronographique. A detail of entries modified (in rather ugly handwriting) by a previous owner. Collection and photo: Stephen Boyd Davis.

John Berger 1926-2017

In memory of John Berger.

About Time.  Channel Four, 1985.

YouTube https://youtu.be/USzGCdoLhjQ

Information Design: research and practice. Important new book

Information Design: research and practice published by Routledge

I have a chapter in this substantial and important book. My chapter focuses on the visualization of historical time, illustrated by key examples from the eighteenth century when the modern timeline was invented. We are fortunate in having not only surviving examples of printed timelines from the period but also explanations written by their makers, revealing the ambitions they had for visualisation. An important divergence is evident, between those who want to use rhetorical visual metaphors to tell a graphical story, and those who prefer to let the data ‘speak for itself’, allowing patterns to emerge from the distribution of data points across a surface. I trace this history through to modern debates about the role of rhetoric in visualisation. Does data talk, or do we need to talk on its behalf?

Weigel, Christoph. 1720. Discus chronologicus. Nuremberg. 51cm × 49cm (detail). Collection and photo: Stephen Boyd Davis.

Citation: ‘To see at one glance all the centuries that have passed’ - early visualisations of historical time. In: Black, A., Luna, P., Lund, O. and Walker, S (eds). Information Design: research and practice. London: Routledge. 3-22.

About the Book

Information Design: research and practice
Edited by Alison Black, Paul Luna, Ole Lund, Sue Walker

750 pages | 314 Color Illustrations

Information Design provides citizens, business and government with a means of presenting and interacting with complex information. It embraces applications from wayfinding and map reading to forms design; from website and screen layout to instruction. Done well it can communicate across languages and cultures, convey complicated instructions, even change behaviours. Information Design offers an authoritative guide to this important multidisciplinary subject. The book weaves design theory and methods with case studies of professional practice from leading information designers across the world. The heavily illustrated text is rigorous yet readable and offers a single, must-have, reference to anyone interested in information design or any of its related disciplines such as interaction design and information architecture, information graphics, document design, universal design, service design, map-making and wayfinding.

Part 1 

Chapter 1. Early visualizations of historical time [my chapter]
Chapter 2. Images of time
Chapter 3. William Playfair and the invention of statistical graphs
Chapter 4. Ship navigation
Chapter 5. Technical and scientific illustration
Chapter 6. The lessons of Isotype for information design
Chapter 7. Marie Neurath: designing information books for young people
Chapter 8. Future, Fortune, and the graphic design of information
Chapter 9. Some documents for a history of information design
Chapter 10. Moral visualizations 

Part 2 

Chapter 11. Graphic literacies for a digital age
Chapter 12. Visual rhetoric in information design
Chapter 13. Multimodality and genre
Chapter 14. Interactive information graphics
Chapter 15. Social and cultural aspects of visual conventions in information
Chapter 16. Textual reading on paper and screens
Chapter 17. Applying science to design 

Part 3 

Chapter 18. Does my symbol sign work?
Chapter 19. Icons as carriers of information
Chapter 20. Warning design
Chapter 21. Diagrams
Chapter 22. Designing static and animated diagrams for modern learning materials
Chapter 23. Designing auditory alarms
Chapter 24. Design challenges in helping older adults use digital tablets
Chapter 25. On-screen colour contrast for visually impaired readers
Chapter 26. Contrast set labelling
Chapter 27. Gestalt principles
Chapter 28. Information design research methods
Chapter 29. Methods for evaluating information design
Chapter 30. Public information documents 

Part 4 

Chapter 31. Choosing type for information design
Chapter 32. Indexing and information design
Chapter 33. When to use numeric tables and why
Chapter 34. Wayfinding perspectives
Chapter 35. Designing for wayfinding
Chapter 36. The problem of ‘straight ahead’ signage
Chapter 37. Park at your peril
Chapter 38. Indoor digital wayfinding
Chapter 39. Visualizing storyworlds
Chapter 40. Exhibitions for learning
Chapter 41. Form follows user follows form
Chapter 42. Information design & value
Chapter 43. The LUNAtic approach to information design
Chapter 44. Information design as a (r)evolutionary educational tool
Chapter 45. Design + medical collaboration
Chapter 46. Developing persuasive health campaign messages
Chapter 47. Information design in medicine package leaflets
Chapter 48. Using animation to help communication in e-PILs in Brazil
Chapter 49. Medical information design and its legislation

Paperback to be published 7 January 2017. Available for pre-order £50.00.

Routledge page about the book.

Olivia at Wellcome Data Week

Olivia Vane, doctoral student in chronographics at the RCA, is working all week at the Wellcome Library.  Data Week is an exploration of the Library’s digital catalogue.  It brings together a multidisciplinary group of researchers, data wranglers and developers in a week-long project to experiment and play with a selection of the Library’s digital data, from medical officer of health reports dating back more than 150 years, to over 3000 AIDS posters.

Throughout the week they are exploring novel forms of research and engagement that the digital can offer. By Friday, there should be several prototype examples of how Wellcome’s digital data can be used in new and exciting ways.

See the Wellcome Data Week blog.

Two papers for Design and Time at DHS Conference 2016

All three PhD students who have worked at the Royal College of Art with me on visualising historical time will be participating in the Design History Society conference 2016, which this year is on the theme of Design and Time.  Olivia Vane and Sam Cottrell are continuing their studies, while Dr. Florian Kräutli, who graduated in July, is now at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science / Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte

Our aim in these presentations will be to raise the level of debate about dates. Since chronology moved from being a proper discipline in the seventeenth century to a kind of silent scaffold for knowledge in the eighteenth century, we have all tended not to take dates seriously.

Our presentations are a plea for a deeper engagement between disciplines in tackling these problems, where dates are obviously valuable data, but also a problem.  Visualisation reveals ‘good’ information - info we hoped and expected to see - but also ‘bad’ information that forces us (all) to think more deeply about the way we position objects in time, both as historians and as designers.

The conference is at Middlesex University where, as it happens, my work on these themes began, helped by two enterprising Masters students, Emma Bevan and Aleksei Kudikov.  Speaking of which, we will also have the pleasure of presenting with Zoë Hendon, Head of Collections at the university’s Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, who supported that project back in 2009 and who has collaborated so generously with us again recently.

Links

• Conference website
• Panel on visualising time - data and the archive
• Design History Society 
• Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
• Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture

Using Data Visualisation to tell Stories about Collections

On Thursday 14th July, Olivia Vane and I presented a paper 'Using Data Visualisation to tell Stories about Collections' at the Electronic Visualisation and the Arts London conference held at the British Computer Society. It was co-authored with our recent graduate Dr. Florian Kräutli, now of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Here's the abstract:

The paper explores visualisation of 'big data' from digitised museum collections and archives, focusing on the relationship between data, visualisation and narrative. A contrast is presented between visualisations that show 'just the data' and those that present the information in such a way as to tell a story using visual rhetorical devices; such devices have historically included trees, streams, chains, geometric shapes and other forms. The contrast is explored through historical examples and a survey of current practice. A discussion centred on visualising datasets from the British Library, Science Museum and Wellcome Library is used to outline key research questions.

And here are a few of the illustrations we used:

Christoph Weigel. 1720. Discus Chronologicus. Nuremberg: Weigel. Collection and photo: Stephen Boyd Davis

Stream of Time, or Chart of Universal History from the German of Strass. London: 1849. Collection and photo: Stephen Boyd Davis

Barbeu-Dubourg, Jacques. 1753. Chronography or Depiction of Time. Rare Books Collection, Princeton University Library (used with permission). Photo: Stephen Boyd Davis.

Florian Kräutli. 2015.  Britten's Poets - visualisation for Britten-Pears Foundation, Aldeburgh UK.

Olivia Vane. 2016.  Visualisation of Medical Office of Health Reports data at Wellcome Library: 'typhoid carrier'.

Olivia Vane. 2016.  Visualisation of Medical Office of Health Reports data at Wellcome Library: 'typhoid carrier' (detail).

We concluded with some research questions about data visualisation and narrative:

• What form(s) should we adopt?
• To what degree can a story be brought out using computation?
• How can we support rapid apprehension from uncluttered displays, but still provide depth of information where it is needed?
• What literary narrative devices can be translated into visual terms?
• What forms of inquiry are best framed in narrative terms?
• Who narrates?

And we were very pleased to receive the EVA 2016 'Best Paper' award!

Olivia Vane, Stephen Boyd Davis at EVA 2016.  Photo: Sam Cottrell.

Read the paper on the BCS website here.

Sensing Time event at the V&A, Saturday 18 June 2016

On Saturday 18 June, I will be contributing a talk to a study day in London jointly organised by the V&A and the Science Museum.

Though the day is called 'Sensing Time: The Art and Science of Clocks and Watches' I won't be talking about either clocks or watches!  Instead I will focus on the 'mechanical' aspects of diagrams of historic time. Here is the blurb for the day:

Time is of the essence. This truth is visible, tangible and audible in the masterpieces of horology in collections across the globe. This interdisciplinary study day will bring together international expertise from curators, makers and conservators. It will explore the different priorities for collecting clocks and watches from exquisite decoration, to materials, mechanics and technological innovation.

It looks like a superb array of presentations and speakers. Here is the outline:

• 10.20 Introduction and Welcome  Matty Pye, Department of Learning V & A
• 10.30 Stillness or Movement: Sight and Touch  Chair: Tessa Murdoch, Deputy Keeper Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass V&A
• Making Time: How to make a clock or watch Anna-Rose Kirk and James Harris, Independent clock makers
• An Eighteenth-Century Astronomical Clock  Peter Plaßmeyer, Director Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
• The Henlein Watch: an iconic timepiece taken apart   Thomas Eser, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg 
• 11.50 Sound and Rhythm: Hearing  Chair: Bill Sherman, Director of Research and Collections, V&A
• Pyke organ clock restoration  Malcolm Archer and Matthew Read, West Dean
• Bells and the rhythms of urban life  Paul Glennie, University of Bristol
• Different types of striking in domestic clocks   Oliver Cooke, Curator Horology, British Museum
• 13.00 Lunch Break
• 14.00 Making sense of the passage of time   Chair: Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer, Royal Observatory Greenwich
• Times change: two Augsburg Clocks in the Gilbert Collection  Heike Zech, Senior Curator, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection, V&A
• Signs of Astrology on early modern clock and watch dials   Jane Desborough, Curator, Science Museum
• Narratives of time: timelines  Stephen Boyd Davis, School of Design, Royal College of Art, London 
• 15.20 Refreshments
• 15.50 Beyond the senses: Collecting Time  Chair: Tim Boon, Head of Research, Science Museum
• Collecting time, presenting time in the Kunstkammer Vienna   Paulus Rainer, Deputy Director, Kunstkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
• 16.30 Discussion and Q&A
• 17.00 Close 

Date
Saturday 18 June, 10.00 – 17.00
Venue
The Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre

More event information here.

"The Idea of a Measurable Space" - Joseph Priestley's 1765 Chart of Biography

On 1 June, I will be talking at the Institute of Historical Research, Senate House, University of London, on "The Idea of a Measurable Space": Joseph Priestley's 1765 Chart of Biography

My central question will be: why did Priestley’s Chart of Biography take the form it did? I'll trace the answers through the contemporary visual and intellectual culture, and through some of Priestley's personal characteristics.  I'll also ask what is unique about Priestley's approach - correcting some common errors - and highlight what is truly special about his contribution.

Date
1 June 2016, 17:15 - 19:15
Venue
Wolfson Room I (NB01)
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

More event information here.

Forthcoming talks on chronographics

On 20 May, Florian will be presenting at the Digital Humanities Early Career Conference 2016 "Mapping the Scope & Reach of the Digital Humanities" at King's College London.

The paper focuses on the relationships between the digital, humanities, design, and research.

Full conference programme here.




On 1 June, I will be talking at the Institute of Historical Research on "The Idea of a Measurable Space": Joseph Priestley's 1765 Chart of Biography

My central question will be: why did Priestley’s Chart of Biography take the form it did?  I'll trace the answers through the contemporary visual and intellectual culture, and through some of Priestley's personal characteristics.  I'll also ask what is unique about Priestley's approach - correcting some common errors - and highlight what is truly special about his contribution.

Date
1 June 2016, 17:15 - 19:15
Venue
Wolfson Room I (NB01)
Senate House
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HU

More event information here.



On Saturday 18 June, I will be contributing a talk to a joint study day between the V&A and the Science Museum.

Though the day is called 'Sensing Time: The Art and Science of Clocks and Watches' I won't be talking about either clocks or watches!  Instead I will focus on the 'mechanical' aspects of diagrams of historic time. Here is the blurb for the day:

Time is of the essence. This truth is visible, tangible and audible in the masterpieces of horology in collections across the globe. This interdisciplinary study day will bring together international expertise from curators, makers and conservators. It will explore the different priorities for collecting clocks and watches from exquisite decoration, to materials, mechanics and technological innovation.

Date
Saturday 18 June, 10.00 – 17.00
Venue
The Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre

More event information here.



On 14 July, Olivia Vane and I will be presenting a paper by myself, Olivia and Florian at Electronic Visualisation and the Arts - 'Using Data Visualisation to tell Stories about Collections'.

The paper explores visualisation of “big data” from digitised museum collections and archives, focusing on the relationship between data, visualisation and narrative. A contrast is presented between visualisations that show “just the data” and those that present the information in such a way as to tell a story using visual rhetorical devices; such devices have historically included trees, streams, chains, geometric shapes and other forms. The contrast is explored through historical examples and a survey of current practice.  A discussion centred on visualising datasets from the British Library, Science Museum and Wellcome Library is used to outline key research questions.

Dates
Tuesday 12th July - Thursday 14th July 2016
Venue
BCS
First Floor
The Davidson Building,
5 Southampton Street
London
WC2E 7HA

More event information here.

 

Dr Florian Kräutli

A quick note to celebrate the award yesterday of PhD to Florian, who has worked so intensively for three and a half years on his investigations of critical chronographics. No amendments, no changes to be made - an immediate pass.

Dr Kevin Walker, Prof Sue Walker, Dr Florian Kräutli, Prof Paolo Ciuccarelli, Prof Stephen Boyd Davis, Dr Michael Selway. Photo: Delfina Fantini van Ditmar

My thanks to...

• Dr Kevin Walker, head of Information Experience Design, RCA and chair of the exam board
• Professor Sue Walker, of Reading University, external examiner
• Paolo Ciuccarelli, of Politecnico di Milano, external examiner
• Dr Michael Selway and Dr Michael Stapleton of System Simulation Ltd, external supervisors
• Prof Ashley Hall and Prof Miles Pennington for providing a scholarly ‘home’ for Florian in Innovation Design Engineering
• ... and of course Florian himself for his deep engagement with a subject to which I am so committed! 

Florian’s PhD was funded by EPSRC grant EP/J502169/1 and System Simulation Ltd.