Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Manuel Lima
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written
permission from the publisher, except in the context of reviews.
Every reasonable attempt has been made to identify owners of copyright. Errors or
omissions will be corrected in subsequent editions.
Special thanks to: Bree Anne Apperley, Sara Bader, Nicola Bednarek Brower, Janet
Behning, Megan Carey, Becca Casbon, Carina Cha, Tom Cho, Penny (Yuen Pik)
Chu, Russell Fernandez, John Myers, Katharine Myers, Margaret Rogalski, Dan Simon,
Andrew Stepanian, Jennifer Thompson, Paul Wagner, Joseph Weston, and Deb Wood
of Princeton Architectural Press Kevin C. Lippert, publisher
Page 1: Eric Fischer, The Geotaggers World Atlas, 2010. A map of geotagged
photographs from Flickr and Picasa taken in New York City. The speed at which
photographers traveled the urban landscape was determined by analyzing the
time stamps and geotags of the images. The resulting traces were plotted on an
OpenStreetMap background layer.
Page 3: Ian Dapot, The Force of Things, 2005. A part of a series of posters based
on mapping the relationships between cited authors and referenced ideas in Jane
Bennetts essay The Force of Things: Steps Toward an Ecology of Matter (2005).
Acknowledgments
02 | From Trees to Net works
19
43
Network Thinking
04 | Infinite Interconnectedness 97
Twitter Wikipedia
05 | The Syntax of a New Language 159
Bibliography 2 58
Index 26 5
06 | Complex Beaut y 2 21
07 | Looking Ahead 24 5
Foreword
Lev Manovich
Visual Complexity looks at the intersection of two key motion graphics, and information design, for exampleare
techno-cultural phenomena of our time: networks and visual- simply visual portfolios. Others are how-to books that pres-
ization. Both were relatively unknown only fifteen years ago ent techniques, best practices, and practical step-by-step
but have since moved to the forefront of our social and cul- guides. Although we can often extract a few paragraphs or
tural lives. While some social scientists had already started pages of important theoretical insights from both types of
to study networks in the middle of the twentieth century, books, these passages usually represent only a very small
globalization and the rise of the web in the nineties and the percentage of a whole book.
explosion of online social networks in the last decade have If visualization of complex data is well on its way to
drawn attention to their importance. Furthermore, although becoming as important to the twenty-first century as pho-
scientists had already been making graphs and charts of tography and film were to the twentieth century, the time
their data since the early nineteenth century, the ubiquity for books that encapsulate its main ideas and concepts
of computers, the growing programming literacy, and the has arrived. Visual Complexity is the first such book. Lima
wealth of data unleashed by networks at the turn of the establishes conceptual coordinates and historical trajec-
twenty-first century democratized information visualization, tories for both practice and appreciation of visualization.
making it a rapidly expanding new area of art and culture. He also balances historical and theoretical discussions of
Author Manuel Lima is a thinker, designer, lecturer, and larger issues with the presentation of exemplary projects in
curator of one of the most influential online galleries that presents network visualization.
the best projects in information visualization: Visualcomplexity The rise of information visualization over the last
.com. However, in contrast to other important galleries that fifteen years raises many important and interesting ques-
try to cover all of information visualization, Visualcomplexity. tions about the identity of this new medium. For example,
com is focused on visualizations of networks. As its ongoing what exactly is the difference between the hundreds of
curator, Lima is likely to have the best understanding of the cre- projects collected in Visualcomplexity.coms gallery and
ative impulses, exciting discoveries, and sheer range of work the standard graphbar charts, pie charts, scatter plots,
produced today in this area. Imbued with Limas expertise, this line charts, and so onthat many of us are routinely pro-
book will become the essential reference for all practitioners ducing using Excel, Apples Numbers, Google Charts, or
and fans of network visualizationor, to use Limas more evoc- similar software? These graph typeswhich were all origi-
ative language, visualizations of complexity. nally invented in the first part of the nineteenth century and
Many books on the recently emerging areas of have therefore already been in use for about one hundred
software-driven designweb design, interaction design, years before digital computersshare a lot in common
Fo re w o rd 12
with digitally native information visualization techniques understanding the phenomena of complexity (think chaos
developed more recently. Both depict quantified data by theory, emergence, complexity theory), which is reflected in
systematically mapping it into visual images. Both use the kinds of visualizations we find appealing.
the same graphic language: points, lines, curves, simple We can also explain the visual variety of information-
shapes, and other graphic primitives. visualization culture. It comes from the systematic effort on
Interestingly, this language of information visualiza- the part of its practitioners to invent new visualization tech-
tion also has many parallels with the language of geomet- niques, which is rewarded both in academia and in the
ric abstraction, which crystallized in the second decade of cultural world. Additionally, since visualizations are now
the twentieth century through the work of Piet Mondrian, valued as artistic and cultural artifacts, we expect them
Kasimir Malevich, Frank Kupka, and other modernist artists. to be uniquejust as we expect this in fashion, product
However, if these artists wanted to liberate visual art from design, architecture, music, and other cultural fields.
its representational functioni.e., its dependence on vis- Another question that inevitably comes up in any
ible datainformation visualization brings representation discussion of information visualization is whether it falls in
back. But this is a new kind of representation appropriate the category of science, design, or art. Here is my pro-
for information society: rather than representing the visible posal: rather than identifying visualization culture with a
world, we now seek to representin order to understand single category, let us consider it as existing in the space
all kinds of data sets. defined by all three.
So what else is unique about information visualiza- Information visualization is widely used as a tool
tion? There are many possible answers to this question, for understanding datai.e., discovering patterns, connec-
although no single response can completely capture all the tions, and structure. Since science is the area of human
differences. Most of the projects discussed in this book are activity targeting the discovery of new knowledge about
visually more dense, more complex, and more varied than the world through systematic methodssuch as experimen-
the familiar charts created with graphing software. Why tation, mathematical modeling, simulationvisualization
is this the case? First, contemporary designers, artists, and now functions as another of these methods.
computer scientists are trying to represent considerably more What distinguishes this new method is that it also
data than ever before. Second, they want to represent rela- firmly belongs to designit involves the visual presenta-
tions between more dimensions of data than is possible with tion of data in a way that facilitates the perception of pat-
older graph types such as bar charts (one dimension) or terns. Just as a graphic designer organizes information on
scatter plots (two dimensions). The third reason is aesthetic a poster or web page to help the user navigate its layout
and ideological: if nineteenth-century techniques for graphs efficiently, an information-visualization designer organizes
fit the scientific paradigm of reduction (breaking nature data to help users see the patterns. At the same time, just
down into the simplest possible elements and defining rules like graphic designers, information-visualization design-
on how these elements interact), our current interest lies in ers do not only aim for efficiency and clarity. They chose
Fo re w o rd 13
particular visualization techniques and graphic styles in their opinions about the world by choosing what they paint;
order to communicate an idea about the data and to evoke writers and filmmakers do this by choosing the subjects of
particular emotions in the viewer. For example, a network their narratives. Now artists can also talk about our world
visualization may emphasize the density of the network, by choosing which data to visualize. How do you represent
present it as a result of organic growth, focus on its instabil- and ask interesting questions about society through its data
ity and dynamism, or show the same network as a logically traces? This is a new opportunity, responsibility, and chal-
arranged, symmetrical, top-down, and stable structure. lenge for contemporary artists.
A significant number of visualization projects col- The space defined by the disciplines of science,
lected on Visualcomplexity.com, and presented elsewhere design, or artor more precisely, the different goals and
online, can be considered pure artand by art, we refer methods we associate with these three areas of human activ-
to the product of nonutilitarian activity as opposed to utili- itycontains lots of possibilities. A given visualization proj-
tarian design. The intent of these projects is not to reveal ect can be situated anywhere in this space, depending on
patterns or structures in data sets but to use information what it privileges. I think that this conceptualization can help
visualization as a technique to produce something aestheti- us understand why some information-visualization projects
cally interesting. Old European masters created color in have already achieved the status of classics within such a
their paintings using a number of transparent layers; sur- brief history of the field. They do not privilege one dimension
realists practiced automatic writings; pop artists magnified of this space at the expense of others but manage to com-
and manipulated fragments of mass media, such as comics, bine all three. They are functional in that they reveal inter-
newspapers, and product packaging. Contemporary artists esting patterns in visualized data. They have strong design
can now use the algorithms to create complex static, ani- in terms of how they organize information and coordinate
mated, or interactive abstractions out of data sets. all the visual elements. And they embody art at its best
Visualizations of complex data sets can also func- both pointing at and making provocative statements about
tion as art in a different sense: an activity aimed at making important new phenomena in the world.3 Visual Complexity
statements and asking questions about the world by select- will help to inspire practitioners to make many more excit-
ing parts of it and representing these parts in particular ing projectsand will help the public better understand the
ways. Some of the most well-known artistic visualization importance and beauty of visualizations of complexity.
projects do exactly that: they make strong assertions about
our world not only through the choice of visualization tech- Notes
niques but also through the choice of data sets.1 As com- 1 For instance, Josh On, They Rule, 2004.
2 Kosara, Visualization Criticism.
puter scientist Robert Kosara wrote in a paper presented at 3 A few strong examples of such successful blends include Fernanda B.
the 2007 Information Visualization conference: The goal Vigas and Martin Wattenberg, History Flow, 2003; Marcos Weskamp,
Newsmap, 2005; Mark Hansen et al., Terre Natale (Exits 2), 2008;
of artistic visualization is usually to communicate a con-
and Ben Fry, On the Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favoured
cern, rather than to show data.2 Figurative artists express Traces, 2009.
15
Introduction
In the midst of a hot, damp summer in New York City, in a physical environment, such as a school, company, or vil-
September 2005, I, strangely enough, found myself with lage. The blogosphere, on the other hand, provided an
too much time on my hands. I had recently graduated extraordinary laboratory to track and analyze how trends,
from Parsons School of Design and had just embarked on ideas, and information travel through different online social
a much-desired full-time job in Midtown Manhattan. Even groups. The possibility of bringing this vast atlas of memes
though I was now officially a member of the frantic world to life was the driving premise of my MFA thesis, Blogviz.
of digital advertising, everything else in my life seemed Presented in May 2005, Blogviz was a visualiza-
extremely slow paced. The weekends were the worsttwo tion model for mapping the transmission and internal struc-
full days with nothing to do but unhurriedly relax from a ture of popular links across the blogosphere. It explored
mildly busy week. Just a few months before, however, I had the idea of meme propagation by drawing a parallel to
been immersed in work, preparing for the climax of two the frequency with which the most-cited URLs appeared
years of obstinate dedication, my MFA thesis show. It was in daily blog entries. It was, in other words, a topologi-
not surprising that after this intense period of my life, I was cal model of meme activity. But in order to properly chart
finding the newly rediscovered spare time to be a grueling these intriguing flows across varied blog entries, I needed
luxury. I missed the adrenaline, the challenges, the con- a better understanding of how blogs were linked and how
stant array of projects and ideas. But above all, I missed a the World Wide Web was structured. During this research
recently discovered passion for an enticing yet unfamiliar period, I investigated and collected dozens of projects
domain: the visual representation of networks. that aimed at providing a portrait of the vast landscape of
During my time at Parsons I observed the blog phe- the web, as well as many network depictions from other,
nomenon swiftly become mainstream, with many dooming apparently less related domains, such as food webs, airline
predictions about the end of mass media and enthused routes, protein chains, neural patterns, and social connec-
visions about the rise of self-publishing. What I found par- tions. As I quickly realized, the network is a truly ubiquitous
ticularly compelling about this change was the role of the structure present in most natural and artificial systems you
blogosphere as a vibrant research environment, specifically can think of, from power grids to proteins, the internet, and
as a venue for the study of information diffusion. the brain. Usually depicted by network diagrams made
Word of mouththe transfer of information orally of nodes (a person, website, neuron, protein, or airport)
from person to personhas always been a subject of inter- and lines that connect and highlight relationships between
est for the social sciences, but one that has always proved the nodes (friendship, chemical exchange, or informa-
difficult to scrutinize among individuals interacting within tion flow), networks are an inherent fabric of life and a
I n t ro d u c t i o n 16
growing object of study in various scientific domains. The However, as the book gained shape, it quickly became
more of these intriguing diagrams I uncovered, the more clear that it was not just about making the pool of knowl-
enthralled and absorbed I became. This genuine curiosity edge more accessible, but also saving it for posterity. As I
quickly turned into a long-lasting obsession over the visual reviewed projects to feature in the book, I was astounded
representation of networks, or more appropriately, network by how many dead links and error messages I encountered.
visualization. As I entered my new postgrad career, this Some of these projects became completely untraceable,
passion somehow became contained, but I knew I couldnt possibly gone forever. This disappearance is certainly not
resist it for much longer. Just a few months after graduating, unique to network visualizationit is a widespread quan-
in the midst of that hot, damp summer in New York City, I dary of modern technology. Commonly referred to as the
pulled together most of this initial body of research into one Digital Dark Age, the possibility of many present-day digital
unique resource. In October 2005, VisualComplexity.com artifacts vanishing within a few decades is a considerably
was born. worrying prospect.
Initiated with approximately eighty projectsthe result The reasons for this vanishing are never the same.
of my academic researchVisualComplexity.com quickly In most instances, pieces are simply neglected over time,
grew to encompass a variety of efforts, from mapping a social with authors not bothering to update the code, rendering it
network of friends on Facebook to representing a global obsolete. In other cases, the plug-in version might become
network of IP addresses. Although VisualComplexity.com incapable of reading older formats or the application pro-
has grown to over seven hundred projects, the goal remains gramming interface (API) from an early data-set source
the same: to facilitate a critical understanding of different might change, making it extremely difficult to reuse the code
network-visualization methods across the widest spectrum that generated the original visualization. Lastly, projects are
of knowledge. This vast repositoryfrequently referred to occasionally moved into different folders or domains or just
as a map of maps and depicting an assortment of systems taken down from the servers, simply because they highlight
in subject areas as diverse as biology, social networks, and an outdated model that does not fit the current ambitions
the World Wide Webis the most complete and acces- of their respective author or company. As I gathered many
sible chart of the fields landscape. Some projects are rich of the projects showcased in the book, I was surprised to
interactive applications that go beyond the computer screen find that it was easier to retrieve an illustration by Joachim
and live in large-scale multisensorial installations; others are of Fiore, produced in the twelfth century, than to attain an
static, meant to be experienced in print media like posters image of a visualization of web routers developed in 2001.
and printouts. Some require hours of rendering and com- Overall, this digital laissez-faire contributes to the ephem-
plex algorithms to produce; others are simply drafted by eral lifespan of most online visualizations, and consequently
hand or use a specific drawing software. the whole field suffers from memory loss.
Making this pool of knowledge available to an More than preserving this collective effort for the
even larger audience was the main impetus for this book. future, this book provides a broad background on the
I n t ro d u c t i o n 17
various forces shaping its development. It yields a com- Following a series of functional recommenda-
prehensive view of the visual representation of networks, tions for network visualization, chapter four, Infinite
delving into historical precedents, various contemporary Interconnectedness, presents a large number of examples
methods, and a range of future prospects. It looks at the divided into fourteen popular subjects. From depictions of
depiction of networks from a practical and functional the blogosphere to representations of terrorist networks,
perspective, proposing several guiding principles for cur- chapter four highlights the truly complex connectedness of
rent practitioners, but also explores the alluring qualities modern times.
of the network schema, as a central driver for a new If chapter four looks at the practice primarily through
conception of art. This comprehensive study of network its most common themes, chapter five, The Syntax of a
visualization should ultimately be accessible to anyone New Language, organizes a vast array of projects by their
interested in the field, independent of their level of exper- shared visual layouts and configurations. As designers, sci-
tise or academic dexterity. entists, and researchers across the globe portray an increas-
The book opens with Tree of Life, an exploration ing number of network structures in innovative ways, their
of the sacred meaning of trees and their widespread use as collective effort forms the building blocks of a new network-
a classification system over the centuries. It showcases an visualization lexicon.
assortment of ancient representationsas predecessors of After presenting an abundance of network-visualiza-
modern-day network diagramswhere the tree metaphor tion examples in chapters four and five, chapter six, Complex
is used to visually convey a variety of topics, from theologi- Beauty, examines the alluring nature of networks, responsible
cal events to an encyclopedias table of contents. for a considerable shift in our culture and society. Alternating
The second chapter, From Trees to Networks, makes between scientific and artistic viewpoints, this chapter explores
the case for a new network-based outlook on the world, one the divide between order and complexity before culminating
that is based on diversity, decentralization, and nonlinearity. in a discussion of an original art movement embracing the
It explores several instancesfrom the way we envision our newly discovered beauty of the network scheme.
cities to the way we organize information and decode our Finally, and in the spirit of network diversity and
brainwhere an alternative network model is replacing the decentralization, Looking Ahead, the last chapter, pres-
hierarchical tree schema. ents different views on the influential growth of visualiza-
Chapter three, Decoding Networks, delves into tion, according to renowned experts, active participants,
the science behind network thinking and network drawing, and attentive observers. The featured essays cover an array
providing a short introduction to its main precursors and of trends and technologies shaping the progress of visual-
early milestones. It also takes a pragmatic and utilitarian ization and provide an immensely captivating perspective
look at network visualization, acknowledging its key func- on what may lie ahead.
tions and proposing a set of guiding principles aimed at By exploring different facets of our information-
improving existing methods and techniques. driven network culture, this book ultimately unifies two rising
I n t ro d u c t i o n 18
Acknowledgments
This endeavor would not have been possible if it had not Sub-directorate of Library Coordination (Spanish Ministry
been for the effort of dozens of individuals and institutions. of Culture); Marcela Elgueda from Fundacin Gego; and
First and foremost my gratitude goes to all the authors and Joe Amrhein from Pierogi Gallery.
organizations, who without exception have kindly shared I would also like to thank the contributing writers
their images, some spending many hours updating old code of the last chapterChristopher Grant Kirwan, David
and re-creating new pieces especially for this undertaking. McConville, Andrew Vande Moere, and Nathan Yau
This book would not exist without you. The second wave whose essays have enriched the book in a remarkable way.
of recognition goes to those who went out of their way to A big thanks to my editor, Linda Lee, for all the advice and
help me during my research and investigation, particularly support, and to Alexandre Nakonechnyj, Lev Manovich,
Luigi Oliverio from the International Center for Joachimist and Fernanda Viegas for their feedback and patient review
Studies; Glenn Roe and Mark Olsen from the Project for of the manuscript. Finally, and most warmly, my caring
American and French Research on the Treasury of the French gratitude goes to my wife, Joana, for her understanding,
Language, University of Chicago; Olga Pombo, author encouragement, and immense patience during my occa-
and researcher at the Center for Philosophy of Sciences of sional ramblings about networks and visualization and the
the University of Lisbon; Pablo Rodriguez Gordo, General long nights spent in front of the computer.
20
Charles Darwin
Francis Bacon
Trees are among the earliest representations of sys- complexities of human understanding, from theological
tems of thought and have been invaluable in organiz- beliefs to the intersections of scientific subjects. This favored
ing, rationalizing, and illustrating various information scheme, usually highlighting a hierarchical ordering in which
patterns through the ages. As the early precursors of all divisions branch out from a central foundational trunk,
modern-day network diagrams, tree models have been is ultimately a universal metaphor for the way we organize
an important instrument in interpreting the evolving and classify ourselves and the world around us.
Sacred Trees embodied in vegetation, that trees, like men, had spirits,
For thousands of years trees have been the subject of passing in and out amongst them, which possessed a mys-
worship, esteem, and mythology. They are a common motif terious and potent influence over human affairs.4
in world religions and a central theme in the art and culture The romances of the Middle Ages contain innumer-
of many ancient civilizations, from Babylon to the Aztecs. ous fables of enchanted forests and gallant knights, with the
As symbols of prosperity, fertility, strength, and growth, trees woods serving as the perfect backdrop. The magic, how-
have been considered sacred by, or have had an astral ever, started a long time ago. In his captivating The Forest
meaning to, numerous societies over the ages. With their in Folklore and Mythology (1928), Alexander Porteous
roots firmly entrenched in the ground and branches reach- explains the meaning of this primordial fascination:
ing toward the skies, they embody a link between heaven,
Earth, and the underworlda unifying symbol of all ele- In the early strivings of the mind of primitive
ments, physical and metaphysical. A tree that reaches into man to account for the scheme of creation, the
heaven, says Rachel Pollack, a science fiction writer and tree took a foremost place, and the sky, with its
tarot expert, is a very vivid and enticing metaphor, and clouds and luminaries, became likened to an
so has proved useful to humans the world over as a way to enormous Cosmogonic Tree of which the fruits
formulate our desire to encounter the divine. 1
were the sun, moon, and stars. Many races of
For thousands of years, forests have had an impact the earth evolved their own conception of a
on humans, not only as a symbol of the mysteries of nature World Tree, vast as the world itself. They looked
but also as tangible providers of shelter and resources. In upon this tree as the cradle of their being, and
The Real Middle Earth: Exploring the Magic and Mystery it bore different names among different nations,
of the Middle Ages (2002), Brian Bates explains how for- and possessed different attributes.5
ests were considered places of magic and power, like a
great spirit which had to be befriended.2 It is not surpris- The tree of life, or the world tree, is an image of the
ing, notes Bates, that so many ancient folktales are set in whole universe, or at least of our planet, that embodies the
the woods, as forests seem to be a natural template for notion that all life is interrelated and sacred.6 This mystical
the human imagination.3 Even though the West has lost its concept has been frequently associated with actual trees in
connection to nature as a divine revelation, many of these the real world, adopting distinct shapes and traits depend-
ancient myths still bear a considerable influence in con- ing on the era and area of the globe. Lotus trees, pome-
temporary society. The folklore of the modern European granate trees, almond trees, and olive trees are among
peasant, and the observances with which Christmas, May the many varieties that have embodied this myth. But the
Day, and the gathering of the harvest are still celebrated in tree of life is ultimately a symbol of all trees. Behind their
civilized countries, explains J. H. Philpot, are all perme- multifaceted physical manifestations, elucidates renowned
ated by the primitive idea that there was a spiritual essence anthropologist Edwin Oliver James, lies the basic themes
Tre e o f L i f e 23
of creation, redemption, and resurrection, resting upon the or with fear, as being closely connected with some spiri-
conception of an ultimate source of ever-renewing life at tual potency, affirms J. H. Philpot in The Sacred Tree in
the centre of the cosmos, manifest and operative in the uni- Religion and Myth (1897). 9
The Bible itself has several
verse, in nature, and in the human order. Author and tree
7
references to mystical trees, with the most popular being
mythology researcher Fred Hageneder further explains the the tree of knowledge from the Book of Genesisa tree
universal nature of the tree: situated in the center of the Garden of Eden and from
which Adam was forbidden to eat. fig. 1 But perhaps one
According to many of the teachings of ancient of the most bewildering religious manifestations of the tree
wisdom, the universe comprises a spiral or cir- of life is the Sephirotic treea mystical symbol, central to
cular movement around a central axis, the axis esoteric Judaism. fig. 2
mundi. And this centre pole has often been Kabbalah (aytz chayim in Hebrew) is a Jewish mys-
depicted as the Tree of Life, or Universal Tree.... tical tradition, which translates as received, an allusion
It portrays the universe as much more than a to the teachings passed through generations or directly
lifeless, clockwork mechanism that blindly fol- from God. A pivotal element of the Kabbalah wisdom is
lows the laws of physics; rather, it presents our the Sephirotic tree: a diagram of ten circles symbolizing ten
world as a living, evolving organism, imbued pulses, or emanations, of divine energy, called sephirot in
with divine spirit. 8
Hebrewthe derivation of sapphire. fig. 3 The ten nodes of
this schema, reading zigzaggedly from top to bottom, are
Throughout the ages, different cultures developed deciphered in the following manner: (1) Kethercrown,
their own concept of a tree of life, with all major reli- (2) Hokhmahwisdom, (3) Binahunderstanding, (4),
gions around the world containing tales and legends of Chesedmercy, (5) Gevurahpower, (6) Tiferetbeauty,
sacred trees. While pre-Christian Scandinavia had its Ash (7) Netzacheternity, (8) Hodglory, (9) Yesod
Yggdrasil, early Hinduism had its tree of Jiva and Atman, foundation, (10) Malkuthkingdom. Even though there are
and later its Ashvastha, or Sacred Fig treealso called several interpretations to the Sephirotic tree, the diagram
Bodhi tree by Buddhists, and under which Gautama Buddha ultimately depicts the different stages of divine creation,
is believed to have meditated and attained enlightenment. indicating that the Creator sent the energy down in a spe-
As for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, they all share cific pattern from Kether to Malkuth,10 or in other words,
the mystical tale of the tree of knowledge of good and from a sublime and intangible presence to a physical and
evil, which originally came from ancient Sumera pre- earthly existence. Using the tree metaphor to represent
Babylonian civilization spanning over three thousand years the emanation of the Universe, a map of all existence, the
in Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq. There is, indeed, Sephirotic tree has remained a powerful symbol over many
scarcely a country in the world where the tree has not centuries and still bears a great significance in the mystic
at one time or another been approached with reverence study of the Torah.
Tre e o f L i f e 24
fig. 1
Albrecht Drer, The Fall of Man, 1509
fig. 2
Sephirotic tree, from Paulus Riccius,
In this engraving depicting the famous
Portae lucis (Doors of light), 1516
biblical tale from the Book of Genesis,
Adam and Eve stand in the Garden of
The pen-and-ink illustration depicts
Eden, with the tree of knowledge of
a Jewish Kabbalist meditating while
good and evil in the background.
holding the tree of life.
fig. 3
Sephirotic-tree diagram, from Rachel
Pollack, The Kabbalah Tree: A Journey
of Balance & Growth, 2004. 2004
Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. Used with
the permission of the publisher. All
rights reserved.
Tre e o f L i f e 25
fig. 4 fig. 5
Genealogy of Henry II (9731024), the Ernst Haeckel, Pedigree of Man, 1879
Holy Roman Emperor, from Hartmann
Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493 Like many other early evolutionists,
Haeckel believed that humans were the
In this genealogical scheme, the tree pinnacle of evolutionthe highest form
metaphor is taken literally, with the of lifeas shown in this depiction of
womans womb depicted as the source the tree of life, with man at the zenith.
of offshoots.
Tre e o f L i f e 27
foundation, a unifying basis. We also use it to convey the group of immediately subordinate kinds, or species, which
distinct areas of human knowledge, as in the branches of in turn serve as genera for further species subordinate to
science or, more specifically, genetics is a branch of sci- them, and so on until one reaches a level at which no fur-
ence. The origin of the word knowledge itself is strongly ther division is possible.13
tied to trees. In the Germanic languages, most terms for This outstanding work is one of the most important
learning, knowledge, wisdom, and so on are derived from philosophical treatises of all time and has been a long-
the words for tree or wood, says Hageneder. In Anglo- lasting influence in Western culture. It grabbed the atten-
Saxon we have witan (mind, consciousness) and witige tion of innumerous philosophers over the centuries, such as
(wisdom); in English, wits, witch, and wizard; and in Porphyry, Ren Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant,
modern German, Witz (wits, joke). These words all stem and Martin Heidegger, all of whom variously defended,
from the ancient Scandinavian root word vid, which means opposed, or modified Aristotles original ideas. The cor-
wood (as in forest, not timber).12
nerstone of Aristotles philosophical theorizing, Categories
laid the foundation for all subsequent classification efforts
Early Pioneers in a variety of scientific areas and still remains a subject of
The earliest known concept for a hierarchical orga- study and encouragement in the pursuit of a comprehen-
nization of knowledge comes to us from ancient Greece, sible universal categorization.
through the work of one of its main characters: Aristotle.
In Categoriesthe first of six works on logic, collectively Tree of Porphyr y
called Organon (ca. 40 BCE)Aristotle (384322 BCE) Porphyry (234ca. 305 CE) was a Greek philosopher
delivers a fundamental vision on classification. He starts born in the city of Tyre, modern-day Lebanon. He is mostly
by exploring a series of semantic relationships, as in the renowned for his contribution to The Six Enneads (ca. 270
equivocal, unequivocal, and derivative naming of things. CE)the only collection of writings by Porphyrys teacher
He then presents the notion of the predicable, used in differ- and founder of Neoplatonism, the Greek philosopher
ent forms of speech and the division of beings, before orga- Plotinus. But it was in his short introduction, or Isagoge (ca.
nizing every entity of human apprehension according to 270 CE), to Aristotles Categories that Porphyry made one of
ten categories: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, the most striking contributions to knowledge classification.
time, position, state, action, and affection. In the remaining In this highly influential introduction, translated into Latin
text, Aristotle discusses in detail the definitions of all given by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius and disseminated
categories and concludes with the different types of move- across medieval Europe, Porphyry reframes Aristotles origi-
ment in nature (e.g., generation, destruction, increase). As nal predicables into a decisive list of five classes: genus
professor of philosophy Anthony Preus explains, Aristotles (genos), species (eidos), difference (diaphora), property
structure is not simply based in a tenfold classification but (idion), and accident (sumbebekos). Most importantly, he
suggests that each category serves as the genus for a introduces a hierarchical, finite structure of classification, in
Ch a p t e r 1 28
what became known as the tree of Porphyry, or simply the theological and philosophical developments by scholars
Porphyrian tree. fig. 6 throughout the ages. It was also, as far as we know, the
Expanding on Aristotles Categories and visually earliest metaphorical tree of knowledge.
alluding to a trees trunk, Porphyrys structure reveals the
idea of layered assembly in logic. It is made of three col- Liber figurarum (Book of figures)
umns of words, where the central column contains a series Joachim of Fiore (ca. 11351202) was a twelfth-century
of dichotomous divisions between genus and species, Italian abbot and the founder of the monastic order of San
which derive from the supreme genus, Substance. Even Giovanni in Fiore, whose followers are called Joachimites.
though Porphyry himself never drew such an illustration Very little is known with certainty about this extraordinary
his original tree was purely textual in naturethe symbolic man, and most of his life accounts came to us from a biog-
tree of Porphyry was frequently represented in medieval raphy published by a later monk of the monastery of Fiore,
and Renaissance works on logic and set the stage for Jacobus Grcus Syllanus, in 1612. Joachim opposed
many religious dogmas and was a firm believer in a more
liberal Church. He envisioned a new age in which man-
kind would reach total freedom and the hierarchy of the
Church would become unnecessary under the rule of the
Order of the Just, an alliance between Christians, Jews,
and Muslims.
Some see Joachim of Fiore as a visionary and a
prophet, others as a mere dissident. Still considered a here-
tic by the Vatican, Joachim of Fiore left behind a number of
his writings and treatises that attest to his productive intel-
lect. Among them is the extraordinary Liber figurarum, one
of the most important and stunning collections of symbolic
theology from the Middle Ages. fig. 7 The illustrations shown
in the manuscript were conceived by Joachim in different
stages of his life and published posthumously in 1202. They
depict a variety of characters and institutions from the Old
and New Testaments, and many employ an organic arbo-
real schema to highlight the centrality of Christ, the grada-
tion of biblical protagonists, and the links with the pastas
in the recurrent use of branches to symbolize the twelve
tribes of Israel. fig. 8, fig. 9, fig. 10
fig. 6 fig. 7
The Tree of the Two Advents, from
The porphyrian tree, the oldest
Joachim of Fiore, Liber figurarum, 1202
known type of a classificatory tree
diagram, was conceived by the
This remarkable figure presents the Redemption), as well as the very top
Greek philosopher Porphyry in the
main characters and institutions of the (the place of the second coming, or
third century AD. This figure shows a
Christian salvation history. From bottom Resurrection). The lower branches,
Porphyrian tree as it was originally
to top: Adam, Jacob the Patriarch, Ozias originating from the figure of Jacob
drawn by the thirteenth-century logician
the Prophet, and Jesus Christ (repeated the Patriarch, correspond to the twelve
Peter of Spain.
twice). The figure of Christ dominates tribes of Israel, and the top branches,
the center of the genealogical tree radiating from the image of Jesus Christ,
(representing the first coming, or symbolize the twelve Christian churches.
Tre e of Life 29
fig. 8
The Trinitarian Tree Circles, from
Joachim of Fiore, Liber figurarum
This tree represents the development of the second (age of the Son), and
the history of Christianity, divided into ultimately the third (age of the Holy
three circles, or states, of the world. Spirit). The amount of foliage increases
At the bottom, Noahs tree (rooted in in density toward the top, culminating
his three sons) gives origin to the first in lush vegetation, symbolizing the
circle (age of the Father), leading to glory of the universal church.
fig. 9
A Pair of Trees with Side-shoots, from
Joachim of Fiore, Liber figurarum
Editor Peter L. Heyworth sees this tree allegory as a of sixteen trees of scientific domains following a leading
teaching tool for the rich biblical heritage. In this period, tree, itself called the arbor scientiae. fig. 11 An expression
the art of preaching itself came to be likened to a tree. of his mystical universalism, this encyclopedic work con-
Praedicare est arborizare [to preach is to plant a tree]: the centrates on the central image of a tree of science, able
well-grown sermon must be rooted in a theme, that flour- to sustain all areas of knowledge.15 Appearing in the very
ishes in the trunk of a biblical auctoritas, and thence grows beginning of the book, the illustration of the tree of science
into its branches and twigs: the divisions and subdivisions works as an introduction to his beguiling concept and a sort
whereby the preacher extends his subject-matter. The ser- 14
of arborescent table of contents. This great tree comprises
mon Praedicare est arborizare is an example of a medieval eighteen roots, which relate to nine transcendent principles
formulation in which trees were often allegorized in relation (not detailed) and nine art principles: difference, concord,
to discursive phenomena, which in turn might explain why contrariety, beginning, middle, end, majority, equality, and
the tree metaphor is so prevalent in the illustrations featured minority. The top of the tree is made of sixteen branches,
in Liber figurarum. With a strong theological nature, Liber each bearing a fruit and a label, representing the different
figurarum represents a remarkable effort of systematization domains of science, which are then depicted as individual
of historical accounts, events, and social ties by means of trees in the remaining pages of the work.
trees and is a seminal work in this period of history. The first set of trees relates to profane knowledge
and includes the arbor elementalis (physics, metaphysics,
Arbor scientiae (Tree of science) and cosmology), the arbor vegetalis (botany and medi-
Born in the Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca in 1235, cine), the arbor sensualis (animals and sensible beings), the
Ramon Llull (12321315) was one of the most astonishing arbor imaginalis (mental entities, psychology), the arbor
figures of medieval Europe. A poet, mystic, philosopher, humanalis (anthropology and the studies of man), the arbor
and devout Christian, he wrote one of the earliest, if not moralis (ethics, moral vices, and virtues), and the arbor
the first, European novel, Blanquerna (1283), and was the imperialis (government and politics of a prince). fig. 12
spearhead of the consolidation of the Catalan language. The second group covers the entirety of religious knowl-
Llull left behind more than 250 works in Catalan, Latin, edge and comprises the arbor apostolocalis (ecclesiasti-
and Arabic, with many more subsequent translations into cal studies and the organization of the church), the arbor
French, Spanish, and Italian. His most renowned piece is celestialis (astronomy and astrology), the arbor angelicalis
Ars magna (The great art), first published in 1271 as Ars (angels), the arbor eviternalis (immortality, the afterlife, hell
magna primitiva (The first great art) and recurrently iterated and paradise), the arbor maternalis (the study of Virgin
by Llull in subsequent editions over thirty years. Mary), the arbor christinalis (christology), and the arbor
But one of Llulls most well-known works, pertaining divinalis (theology). There are two additional trees, arbor
to knowledge representation, was his wonderful Arbor sci- exemplificalis and arbor quaestionalis. The first contains
entiae from 1296, which includes a magnificent compilation a series of metaphorical examples pertaining to the four
fig. 10
The Tree-Eagle (Old Dispensation), from
Joachim of Fiore, Liber figurarum
fig. 13
Diagrams of Llulls intriguing
combinatory-logic concepts, from Llull,
Ars Brevis V.M.B. Raymundi Lullij Tertij
Ord. S. Francisci, Doc. Illu.: mendis
castigata, Capitibus Divisa, atque
scholiis locupletata, 1669
Tre e of Life 33
natural elements (fire, water, earth, and air), with the goal Encyclopedism
of transforming science into an accessible narrative, while The desire for gathering the sum of human knowl-
the second features a large body of four thousand ques- edge in a comprehensive compendium is as old as our
tions related to the preceding trees. desire to organize it. The earliest known attempt to do so
Despite Llulls magnificent arrangement of the trees appeared in the form of Naturalis historia (Natural his-
of science, which centuries later influenced the classifica- tory), published in 80 AD, a thirty-seven-chapter encyclo-
tion efforts of Francis Bacon and Ren Descartes, his most pedia describing different aspects of the natural world and
recognized contribution to European thinking was the pur- human developments in art, architecture, and medicine,
suit of an organic and unitary corpus of knowledge and among other domains, written by Pliny the Elder, a Roman
a systematic classification of reality, which included a statesman. Leading up to the Middle Ages, the seminal
series of diagrams, symbolic notations, and mechanical Etymologiae (ca. 630 AD), by the prolific scholar Saint
apparatuses. 16
fig. 13 This approach was instrumental in Isidore of Seville, is one of the most significant encyclope-
the research of German philosopher and mathematician dic ventures. The work comprised 449 chapters in twenty
Gottfried Leibniz (16461716), particularly in his con- volumes and encapsulated much of the knowledge of the
ception of an imaginary universal language capable of age. Later on Bartholomeus Anglicuss De proprietatibus
expressing the most sophisticated mathematical, scientific, rerum (1240) became one of the most read encyclopedias
and metaphysical conceptsthe famous characteristica of the time, while Vincent of Beauvaiss Speculum majus
universalis (universal characteristic). Leibniz first men- (1260) was the most comprehensivewith over three mil-
tioned this lexicon made of pictographic characters, which lion words. But it was in the midst of the French Renaissance
reduces all debate to calculation, in his Dissertatio de arte that one of the most consequential efforts at rationalizing
combinatoria (Dissertation on the combinatorial art), pub- knowledge took place, by the hands of French scholar
lished when Leibniz was only nineteen. This vocabulary Christophe de Savigny.
created the seed for the later development of the binary
systemthe foundation of all modern computersthat Tableaux accomplis de tous les arts libraux
Leibniz eventually presented in his ingenious Explication (Complete tables of all liberal arts)
de larithmtique binaire (Explanation of binary arithme- In 1587 de Savigny published in Paris the magnificent
tic), published in 1705. Tableaux accomplis de tous les arts libraux. This pivotal
work contains sixteen beautifully decorated tables covering
the following arts and sciences (in the order they appear in
the book): grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geome-
try, optics, music, cosmography, astrology, geography, phys-
ics, medicine, ethics, jurisprudence, history, and theology.
The book is solely composed of the sixteen tables, each one
Ch a p t e r 1 34
accompanied by a corresponding one-page description. In While this effort on the classification of knowledge
every table, a tree of interrelated topics takes center stage, is thought to have been inspired by de Savignys picto-
surrounded by an oval ornamental piece containing various rial encyclopedia, produced a few years before, Bacons
graphic elements pertaining to the depicted discipline. fig. 14 essay fostered much of the subsequent thinking in scholarly
Tableaux accomplis de tous les arts libraux, one of the circles, making him the great precursor of modern encyclo-
most enticing medieval pieces on the rationalization and pedism and a key influence in Descartess conception of the
visual representation of knowledge, became an important tree of knowledge.
influence on the subsequent work of Bacon, ultimately con- Descartes (15961650), often called the father of
solidating the widespread use of the tree metaphor. modern philosophy, continued exploring Bacons ideas on
the arboreal scheme of science in many of his works, includ-
The consolidation: Francis Bacon and Ren Descartes ing The World (162933), Dioptrics (1637), Meteorology
In 1605 English philosopher and fervent promoter of the (1637), and Geometry (1637). But it was in his Principia
Scientific Revolution Bacon (15611626) published one of philosophiae (Principles of Philosophy) (1644), his longest
the major landmarks in the history of science, and arguably and most ambitious piece, that Descartes delved further
the most significant philosophical work in English until then. into the topic. This exceptional work was meant to have
In The Advancement of Learning, Bacon not only suggests six parts (although he only concluded the first four): IThe
a new science of observation and experimentation, as a Principles of Human Knowledge, IIThe Principles of
substitute to secular Aristotelian science, but also explores Material Things, IIIThe Visible Universe, IVThe Earth,
with great minutia the wide arrangement of all human VLiving Things, VIHuman Beings. The 207 completed
knowledge, from the general to the particular. He starts principles are normally short (one paragraph each) and
by dividing mans understanding into three main parts: resemble a list of small knowledgeable units, a synthesis of
History to his Memory, Poesy [poetry] to his Imagination, most of his theories in philosophy and physics, dealing with
and Philosophy to his Reason.17 He then suggests various everything from geometry to the perception of the senses.
subdivisions to the three main categories and drills down to In a letter to the French translator of the work, while
its key disciplines, such as physics, mathematics, and anat- explaining the rationale behind the principles, Descartes
omy, describing and contextualizing them in great detail. describes his image of the tree of knowledge:
During his expositions he alludes to the tree of knowledge:
The distributions and partitions of knowledge are not like Thus, all Philosophy is like a tree, of which
several lines that meet in one angle, and so touch but in a Metaphysics is the root, Physics the trunk, and
point; but are like branches of a tree, that meet in a stem, all the other sciences the branches that grow
which hath a dimension and quantity of entireness and con- out of this trunk, which are reduced to three
tinuance, before it comes to discontinue and break itself principles, namely, Medicine, Mechanics, and
into arms and boughs. 18
Ethics.... But as it is not from the roots or the
fig. 14
Geometry, from Christophe de Savigny,
Tableaux accomplis, 1587
35
silhouette
Ch a p t e r 1 36
trunks of trees that we gather the fruit, but only instead of the common top-down or bottom-up arrange-
from the extremities of their branches, so the ment. fig. 15, fig. 16 The leftmost branch of knowledge has a
principal utility of philosophy depends on the series of sub-branches (e.g., artificial, external, real) before
separate uses of its parts, which we can only reaching the final, rightmost branches (e.g., astronomy,
learn last of all.
19
geography, sculpture), which represent particular sections
in the book and fulfill the goal of the chart to serve as a
While neither Bacon nor Descartes developed a table of contents. Bearing a strong resemblance to the suc-
visual representation of the tree of knowledge, it is through cessive forking of the Porphyrian tree, the diagram maps
their words that we can ascertain the construction of such a forty-seven different disciplines in the book, including
hierarchical classification scheme, which contributed deci- meteorology, geometry, alchemy, architecture, commerce,
sively to the establishment of the general metaphor of the tree medicine, and poetry. We can once more perceive the tree
as the underlying epistemological model of all sciences. metaphor, not only to express the various relations between
the topics, but also as a unifying element, connecting all
Cyclopdia areas of knowledge under the same foundation.
Published in 1728 and composed of two volumes, this work
by Ephraim Chambers was one of the earliest general ency- Encyclopdie
clopedias written in English. The noticeably long full title During the mid-eighteenth century, in the height of French
of the piece describes its holistic aim: Cyclopdia, or, An Enlightenment, one of the most astounding encyclopedic
universal dictionary of arts and sciences: containing the efforts took place by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond
definitions of the terms, and accounts of the things signifyd dAlembert. First published in 1751, the Encyclopdie, ou
thereby, in the several arts, both liberal and mechanical, dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers
and the several sciences, human and divine: the figures, (Encyclopedia, or a systematic dictionary of the sciences,
kinds, properties, productions, preparations, and uses, of arts, and crafts) was one of the largest encyclopedias pro-
things natural and artificial: the rise, progress, and state of duced until then, accounting for 20 million words in 71,818
things ecclesiastical, civil, military, and commercial: with articles and 3,129 illustrations over thirty-five volumes.
the several systems, sects, opinions, etc: among philoso- Inspired by a French translation of Chamberss Cyclopdia,
phers, divines, mathematicians, physicians, antiquaries, Encyclopdie became an important drive for the subse-
criticks, etc: the whole intended as a course of ancient and quent launch of Encyclopedia Britannica seventeen years
modern learning. later, and a precursor to many modern encyclopedias.
One of the most significant achievements of This innovative encyclopedia paid special atten-
Cyclopdia, with respect to knowledge classification, was tion to the mechanical arts, and it was the first to include
the introduction of a horizontal tree diagram, in which the contributions from well-known authors, many of the great
hierarchical ordering of subjects reads from left to right, names of French Enlightenment among them, such as
37
fig. 16
Table of contents, from Chambers,
Cyclopaedia
fig. 15
Table of contents as it appears in the
preface of the original publication,
from Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopdia,
or, An universal dictionary of arts and
sciences, 1728
38
fig. 17 fig. 18
Title page, from Denis Diderot and Jean Systme figur des connaissances
le Rond DAlembert, Encyclopdie, ou humaines (Figurative system of
dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des human knowledge), from Diderot and
arts et des mtiers (Encyclopedia, or a DAlembert, Encyclopdie
systematic dictionary of the sciences,
arts, and crafts), 1751
Tre e of Life 39
Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Diderots article This conception of an encyclopedia as a growing organ-
Encyclopedia indicates his main motivation behind this ism with many possible directions, as a map of scientific
pursuit: Indeed, the purpose of an encyclopedia is to col- domains, explains why Diderot and dAlembert included
lect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth an illustration of the collective knowledge of humankind
its general system to the men with whom we live, and trans- in the Encyclopdie. The piece entitled Systme Figur des
mit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of Connaissances Humaines (Figurative system of human knowl-
preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries edge), and later called the tree of Diderot and dAlembert,
to come. 20
was first featured in the original 1751 edition and executed
Diderot believed an encyclopedia to be, above all, by French designer and engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin.
a directory of associations, where the connections between fig. 17, fig. 18 The scheme organizes all areas of science
the different areas of science could be exposed and fur- (knowledge) under three main branches: memory (or his-
ther pursued by each individual reader. Every science tory), reason (or philosophy), and imagination (or poetry).
overlaps with others: they are two continuous branches off If conceptually the scheme is inspired by Bacons classifica-
a single trunk, 21
asserts Diderot. The branching analogy tion, graphically it has a clear similitude to Chamberss tree
appears once again. In the same article, Diderot expresses diagram in Cyclopdia, showcasing an analogous succes-
an intriguing vision of the future, reminiscent of our now sion of curly brackets from higher to lower categories.
ubiquitous hypertext: In 1780 an alternative version of the original illustra-
tion was made, this time as a much more literal arboreal
Thanks to encyclopedic ordering, the univer- metaphor. Essai dune distribution gnalogique des sci-
sality of knowledge, and the frequency of ences et des arts principaux (Genealogical distribution of
references, the connections grow, the links go arts and sciences) was featured as a fold-out frontispiece
out in all directions, the demonstrative power in the Table analytique et raisonne des matieres contenues
is increased, the word list is complemented, dans les XXXIII volumes in-folio du Dictionnaire des sciences,
fields of knowledge are drawn closer together des arts et des mtiers, et dans son supplement. figs. 1920
and strengthened; we perceive either the conti- This tree depicts a genealogical distribution of knowledge,
nuity or the gaps in our system, its weak sides, with its three prominent branches matching the early dia-
its strong points, and at a glance on which gram: memory/history (left), reason/philosophy (center),
objects it is important to work for ones own and imagination/poetry (right). The heavy tree bears fruits
glory, or for the greater utility to humankind. of different sizes, representing the different domains of sci-
If our dictionary is good, how many still better ence, in an intricate branching configuration. Its slightly
works it will produce! 22
unbalanced look is caused by the dominance of the central
bough of philosophy, which holds most of the trees branches
and shadows the withered ones of history and poetry.
40
fig. 20
Detail of Essai dune distribution
gnalogique
fig. 19
Chrtien Frederic Guillaume Roth,
Essai dune distribution gnalogique
des sciences et des arts principaux
(Genealogical distribution of arts and
sciences), from Diderot and DAlembert,
Encyclopdie
Tre e of Life 41
filter, and organize files in a nested hierarchy. Nonetheless, 9 Philpot, The Sacred Tree in Religion and Myth, 1.
10 Pollack, The Kabbalah Tree, xvi.
the Essai dune distribution gnalogique des sciences et 11 Ibid., xvii.
des arts principaux marked the end of the golden age of 12 Hageneder, The Living Wisdom of Trees, 8.
13 Preus and Anton, Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy V, 19.
embellishment, in which trees were seen as powerful fig- 14 Heyworth, Medieval Studies for J. A. W. Bennett, 216.
ures embedded with loftier connotations. Over time, tree 15 Pombo, Combinatria e Enciclopdia em Rmon Lull.
16 Rossi, Logic and the Art of Memory, 38.
diagrams acquired a generic nonfigurative design and 17 Bacon, Francis Bacon, 175.
became utilitarian tools rigorously studied by those in com- 18 Ibid., 189.
19 Ibid.
puter science and the mathematical field of graph theory.
20 Diderot, Encyclopedia.
Even though they have lost most of their allegorical symbol- 21 Ibid.
22 Ibid.
ism, contemporary tree models still use many labels of the
past (e.g., root, branches, leaves). Today trees are used in
the representation of taxonomic knowledge in a variety of
subject areas; and, as an exceptionally suitable scheme
in the modeling of hierarchical structures, they will most
certainly continue their widespread sphere of influence well
into the future.
42
Besides its evocative symbolism and undeniable appli- tree metaphor, advocating for flexible alternative models
cability in different types of organizational contexts, able to accommodate the complex connectedness of mod-
the hierarchical tree model has innumerous connota- ern society. The first disapproving view associates trees with
tions that have been occasionally criticized. Many the notion of centralism, or centralization, which expresses
opposing voices, usually highlighting its most perni- either an unequivocal concentration of power and author-
cious attributes, have refuted the centralized, top-down ity in a central person or group of people, or a particular
system in which most communications are routed through In opposition to this authoritarian model, Deleuze
one central hub. Centralism is also linked to other less repu- and Guattari in their Capitalism and Schizophrenia
table concepts, such as totalitarianism, authoritarianism, (197280) propose the concept of rhizome, aimed at
and absolutismtypical of severely oppressive hierarchi- acknowledging multiplicities and multilinearities: In con-
cal systems. trast to centered systems with hierarchical modes of com-
In The Tree of Life (2007), Guillaume Lecointre and munication and pre-established paths, the rhizome is an
Herv Le Guyader provide two additional views associ- acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without
ated with the widespread concept of trees: finalism and a General and without an organizing memory or central
essentialism. Finalism, as the name implies, envisages a
1
automaton, defined solely by a circulation of states.2
world where everything flows toward a predetermined Distinct from a tree topology and its individual branches,
final goal. Essentialism has an absolute understanding of the rhizome connects any point to any other point, in a
the nature of being, in which every entity has a set of transverse and autonomous way, allowing for a flexible
properties belonging to a precisely defined kind or group. network of intercommunicability to emerge. The rhizome
It sees the essence of things as permanent, immutable char- pertains to a map that must be produced, constructed, a
acteristicsa fundamental rule for the enduring tree orga- map that is always detachable, connectable, reversible,
nization. If finalism describes the unidirectional courses of modifiable, and has multiple entryways and exits and its
trees, essentialism alludes to their inert branches, which own lines of flight.3
never shift or interact. Given that centralism, finalism, and The rhizomatic model is a significant influence in
essentialism form the basis of a common tree arrangement, postmodern thinking, particularly in areas like communi-
we might also describe it as an authoritarian, unidirec- cation theory, cyberspace theory, complex systems, non-
tional, and stagnant model. linear narrative, and hypermedia. But perhaps one of the
In part due to its aforementioned traits, the tree most famous demonstrations of the principles applicability
model has been attacked, most notably by French philoso- is hypertext. Pertaining to any text with references (hyper-
phers Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, who, in response, links) to other texts, hypertext is the fundamental building
developed an antagonistic philosophical theory. Deleuze block of the World Wide Webarguably the largest rhi-
and Guattari oppose trees due to their forced totalitarian- zomatic system ever created by man. But rhizomatic theory
ism and despotismthey are always dependent on a cen- also helps us apprehend the intricacies of the world: the
tral authority. The authors argue in A Thousand Plateaus rhizome is not a self-imposed conjectural view on our exis-
(1987) that trees are a condition of theoretical rigidness tence, but a fundamental topology of nature and an under-
and unidirectional progress, where everything returns to a lying element to the complex fabric of life. Perhaps for this
central trunk through vertical and linear connections. Trees reason, the rhizome has become a philosophical mentor
therefore embody an organization that has never truly in the ongoing struggle of modern science to cope with
embraced multiplicity. increasingly complex challenges.
fig. 1
Warren Weavers concept of the three
stages of modern science, according to
the type of problems it tried to solve
problems of simplicity, problems of
disorganized complexity, and problems
of organized complexityas discussed
in Weaver, Science and Complexity
(1948)
From Tre es to N et works 45
A few decades before Deleuze and Guattaris con- techniques which were so dramatically suc-
ception of the rhizome, American scientist Warren Weaver cessful on two-, three-, or four-variable prob-
was already aware of the inherent complexities of nature lems of simplicity....These new problems, and
and the hurdles anticipated by the scientific community in the future of the world depends on many of
deciphering them. In 1948 in an article entitled Science them, requires science to make a third great
and Complexity, Weaver divided the history of modern advance, an advance that must be even
science into three distinct stages: The first period, covering greater than the nineteenth century conquest
most of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centu- of problems of simplicity or the twentieth cen-
ries, encapsulated what he denominated as problems of tury victory over problems of disorganized
simplicity. Most scientists during this period were funda- complexity. Science must, over the next 50
mentally trying to understand the influence of one variable years, learn to deal with these problems of
over another. The second phase, taking place during the organized complexity. 4
first half of the twentieth century, involved problems of
disorganized complexity. This was a period of time when Weavers paper has been a great influence on con-
researchers started conceiving systems with a substantial temporary thinking about complexity and the emergence
number of variables, but the way many of these variables of recent fields like complexity science and network theory.
interacted was thought to be random and sometimes cha- The conjecture he made for the second half of the twentieth
otic. The last stage defined by Weaver, initiated in the sec- century, and the advancement of science in dealing with
ond half of the twentieth century and continuing to this day, increasingly complex challenges, is as true now as it has
is critically shaped by problems of organized complexity. ever been. As we will see throughout this chapter, many
Not only have we recognized the presence of exceedingly of our contemporary hurdles, from the way we organize
complex systems, with a large number of variables, but we our cities to the way we decode our brain, concern prob-
have also recognized the notion that these variables are lems of organized complexity that cannot be portrayed,
highly interconnected and interdependent. fig. 1 analyzed, or understood by employing a centralized tree
In reference to the last stage, Weaver wrote in 1948: metaphor. In opposition to top-down hierarchies, these new
challenges deal primarily with rhizomatic properties such
These problems [such as commodity price fluc- as decentralization, emergence, mutability, nonlinearity,
tuation, currency stabilization, war strategies, and ultimately, diversity.
or the behavioral patterns of social groups] The complex connectedness of modern times
and a wide range of similar problems in the requires new tools of analysis and exploration, but above
biological, medical, psychological, economic, all, it demands a new way of thinking. It demands a plu-
and political sciencesare just too compli- ralistic understanding of the world that is able to envision
cated to yield to the old nineteenth century the wider structural plan and at the same time examine the
17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries First half of the 20th Century Post -1950
intricate mesh of connections among its smallest elements. society, dissociation is anarchy. In a person, dissociation
It ultimately calls for a holistic systems approach; it calls for is the mark of schizophrenia and impending suicide.5 As
network thinking. Alexander clearly implies, human beings do not naturally
comply with this highly compartmentalized modus ope-
randi. Our connections, among ourselves and with the
Planning a Cit y surrounding environment, do not follow this type of con-
In 1965 the influential architect Christopher ceptual order and simplicity. We are ambiguous, complex,
Alexander, most famously known for his book A Pattern and idiosyncratic. The reality of todays social structure
Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction (1977), wrote one is thick with overlapthe systems of friends and acquain-
of the most influential pieces of postmodern criticisms on tances form a semilattice, not a tree,6 states Alexander on
architecture, a short essay entitled A City is Not a Tree. In the convergent nature of social groups. He is convinced
it, Alexander refutes the hierarchical and centralized orga- that the reductionist conception of urban spaces, typical
nization of the urban landscape, characteristic of model cit- of a tree organization, blinds our judgment of the city and
ies such as Brasilia, in favor of organic cities like London limits the problem-solving abilities of many planners and
and New York. He declares that many of these artificial cit- system analysts.
ies have failed due to the rigid and insipid thinking of their Alexander understands well the invisible mesh of
creators, who planned areas of activity (e.g., residential, interconnections that overlays the urban environment and
industrial, commercial) as independent and incommunicable suggests a semilattice organization, similar to a network,
modules, in a typical tree structure of separate branches. that can better suit the complexities of human relationships.
Although we have become accustomed to this type Due to its structural intricacy, the semilattice is a source
of stringent urban layout, it is a fairly recent conception. of rich variety. Within the semilattice the idea of over-
Before the Industrial Revolution, most people lived in resi- lap, ambiguity, multiplicity of aspect [are not] less orderly
dential spaces located above their work environment, and than the rigid tree, but more so....They represent a thicker,
the line between personal and professional spheres was tougher, more subtle and more complex view of structure.7
very thin. The effects of industrialization meant that people Alexander finishes the article with the unequivocal asser-
lived in one area of town, worked in another, and probably tion that the city is not, cannot and must not be a tree....
shopped in yet another area. Anyone who has ever lived The city is a receptacle for life.8 fig. 3
in a large city with its sprawling suburban areas knows Published four years before Alexanders piece, Jane
how this segregation translates to lengthy daily commuting Jacobs, in the classic The Death and Life of Great American
time. fig. 2 Alexander is extremely forthright about the con- Cities (1961), delivers a biting criticism of the urban calami-
sequences of this fragmentation: In any organized object, ties perpetrated in the United States during the 1950s,
extreme compartmentalization and the dissociation of inter- which caused social alienation by isolating a large number
nal elements are the first signs of coming destruction. In a of communities and urban spaces. The book also offers
From Tre es to N et works
fig. 2
Brandon Martin-Anderson, Shortest Path
Tree, 2006
fig. 3
Nikos Salingaros, Tree versus
semilattice, 1965
a convincing exaltation for organicisma philosophical cooperation can easily prosper. This will only happen if
notion that proposes that reality is best understood as an we stop imposing artificial barriers on our spaces and truly
organic whole. Jacobs eloquently describes the aim of her embrace the diverse social nature of man.
book in the very first introductory paragraph: This book is
an attack on current city planning and rebuilding. It is also,
and mostly, an attempt to introduce new principles of city Neural Landscape
planning and rebuilding, different and even opposite from The study of the brain has truly come a long way.
those now taught in everything from schools of architec- Ancient accounts, dating back to Greek philosophy, indi-
ture and planning to the Sunday supplements and womens cate an early belief in the assessment of ones character
magazines. She opposes any simplified or ingenuous
9
or personality (e.g., criminality) from ones facial features
plan of a city, and in reference to Weavers original thesis, (e.g., distance between the eyes), in what became com-
Jacobs states, Cities happen to be problems in organized monly referred to as physiognomy. It is not surprising that,
complexity, like the life sciences. They present situations in as social beings, people would associate outer appearance
which a half-dozen or even several dozen quantities are with inner character. This became a widespread convic-
all varying simultaneously and in subtly interconnected tion that was held by many prominent figures of antiquity,
ways.10
Jacobs reiterates that contemporary urban plan- including Aristotle.
ning has obliterated the city, because it has rejected its Toward the eighteenth century, researchers aban-
main actorshuman beings. doned the study of facial features to pursue the study of the
The work of Jacobs and Alexander has been fun- skull itself. And by 1796, by the hands of German physician
damental in the emergence of New Urbanism, a move- Franz Joseph Gall, the pseudoscience of phrenology was
ment started in the 1980s with the goal of investigating born. Phrenologists believed that the shape of the skull,
a more efficient integration between the primary uses of with its bumps and hollows, exposed the thoughts within.
a city. Even though this movement has caused various Believing that the mind was made up of different mental
new developments to emerge in the last decades across faculties represented in distinct areas of the brain, phre-
the globepromoting pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, nologists measured the cranial bone to find the engorged
green-building construction, historic preservation, and a or shrunken areas of the skull that corresponded to the area
balanced development between jobs and housingwe still of the brain responsible for a particular personality trait,
have a long way to go. This much needed transformation character, or behavior. Galls list of the brain organs con-
will have to acknowledge the city as a living organism in tained twenty-seven different regions, including the love
constant mutation, a highly complex network involving a of ones offspring, the carnivorous instinct; the tendency
vast number of variables. It will have to conceive the city to murder, the memory of words, the sense of sounds;
as an open space bursting with overlap and spontaneity, the gift of music, the poetical talent, and the organ of
where the natural conditions for creativity, recreation, and religion. fig. 4, fig. 5
From Tre es to N et works 49
fig. 4
Phrenology diagram, from W. H. De
Puy, Peoples Cyclopedia of Universal
Knowledge, 1883
fig. 5
The definition of phrenology with
corresponding diagram, from Noah
Webster, Websters Academic
Dictionary, 1895
Ch a p t e r 2 50
fig. 6
Brain and Body, from Alesha Sivartha,
The Book of Life: The Spiritual and
Physical Constitution of Man, 1912
From Tre es to N et works 51
fig. 8
Locations, from Sivartha, The Book of Life
fig. 7
Brain Structure, from Sivartha, The Book
of Life
Ch a p t e r 2 52
A century later, as phrenology was already in Fdrale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland, and project
decline, the work of philosopher Alesha Sivartha captured director of the remarkably impressive Blue Brain project.
the pinnacle of this ideology in The Book of Life: The Spiritual Markram and his team of neuroscientists, paired
and Physical Constitution of Man (1912). In this magnificent with IBMs sophisticated supercomputer, Blue Gene, are cre-
collection of brain maps and pseudoscientific illustrations, ating a blueprint of the neocortexa part of the cerebral
Sivartha explores many of the ideas associated with phre- cortex that accounts for nearly 80 percent of the human
nology, with the brain as the setting for the structuring of brain. fig. 9 In this active region, made up from a dense net-
all types of social, political, ethical, and cultural concepts. work of neurons and fiberscommonly known as gray mat-
fig. 6, fig. 7, fig. 8 ter due to its gray color in preserved brainsmany higher
Phrenology was eventually recognized as an cognitive functions such as conscious thought, memory, and
extremely flawed system that simply went down in history communication occur.
as a divergent scientific pursuit. It did, however, contrib- The goal of the Blue Brain projectto generate
ute to a long-lasting meme regarding the modularity of the a holistic model of such an intricate structureis not a
mind. Many people still think of the brain in terms of left straightforward task and conceivably requires an astound-
and right, front and back modules, or believe in the pres- ing amount of computing power. This is how writer Jonah
ence of a unique centralized control responsible for the Lehrer describes the technical setup behind the project:
great diversity of cognitive tasks and human behaviors.
The idea of a centre for different functions in the brain In the basement of a university in Lausanne,
is so intuitively appealing, it is hard to relinquish, explains Switzerland, sit four black boxes, each about
renowned neuroscientist Susan Greenfield. 11
But it is an the size of a refrigerator, and filled with 2,000
inadequate model. Instead of a centralized control, our IBM microchips stacked in repeating rows.
voluntary and involuntary actions are triggered by a series Together they form the processing core of a
of electrochemical impulses percolating through millions machine that can handle 22.8 trillion opera-
of neurons, like a multitude of musical instruments coming tions per second. It contains no moving parts
together for a symphony. and is eerily silent. When the computer is
It is estimated that an adult human brain has around turned on, the only thing you can hear is the
one hundred billion neurons, with each neuron being biolog- continuous sigh of the massive air conditioner.
ically wired to thousands of its neighbors by dendrites and This is Blue Brain.12
axons. The brains staggering complexity represents one of
the toughest puzzles, challenging modern neuroscientists Blue Brain is an incredible initiative, only compa-
to constantly reassess their assumptions. One of the men rable in greatness to the Human Genome Projectan
leading this quest is Henry Markram, director of the Center international scientific initiative with the goal of mapping
for Neuroscience and Technology at cole Polytechnique and sequencing the entire human genome. The immense
53
fig. 9
cole Polytechnique Fdrale de
Lausanne, Blue Brain Project, 2008
knowledge that could arise from this breakthrough is still this systemic modeling method. What this new reasoning
hard to grasp, and so are its consequences. Once we might represent for the advancement of science might be
have the entire map of the neural circuitry, the possibility even more significant than Blue Brain itself.
of re-creating it in a functional simulation would be the
logical next step. In an ambitious statement at the annual
TEDGlobal conference in Oxford, England, in July 2009, Ubiquitous Datasphere
with the theme The Substance of Things Not Seen, The internet is one of the most extraordinary and
Markram declared, It is not impossible to build a human complex systems ever built by man. It has become so influ-
brain and we can do it in ten years. 13
ential in our lives that it is easy to forget its relatively young
The first significant milestone of the project has age. In the middle of the Cold War and while working for
already been achieved: the replication of the neocorti- the U.S. military intelligence agency RAND Corporation to
cal columna small slice of the brain cortex containing develop a new communication system that could survive a
approximately ten thousand neurons, and about thirty mil- nuclear attack, the then thirty-year-old Paul Baran produced
lion synaptic connections between them. Now we just several documents that attested the vulnerabilities of the
have to scale it up, says Markram in his usual optimis- communication infrastructure of the time. His proposition
tic attitude, referring to the replication of the rest of the for a safer alternative would become a central driving force
brain. His encouraging view is founded in the conviction
14
for the subsequent development of the internet. In 1964
that Blue Brain is conveying a different way of looking at Baran suggested three possible models for the novel sys-
ourselves, and ultimately at science. Markram considers tem: centralized (with a single decision center), decentral-
that merely looking at the isolated parts is not providing us ized (more than one decision center), and distributed (made
the whole picture, and the reductionist approach of neu- by uniformly distributed nodes with no decision center).
roscience, successful as it was until now, has exhausted fig. 10 Baran recommended the very last one, a model with
itself. This doesnt mean weve completed the reduction- a noticeable mesh structure, more resilient to an eventual
ist project, far from it. There is still so much that we dont attack. The distributed topology Baran proposed, which
know about the brain. But now we have a different, and he published in a series of reports entitled On Distributed
perhaps even harder, problem. Were literally drowning in Communications (1964), would then be further developed
data. We have lots of scientists who spend their life work- and implemented by another American agency: the
ing out important details, but we have virtually no idea Advanced Research Projects Agency, commonly known as
how all these details connect together. Blue Brain is about ARPA. fig. 11, fig. 12
showing people the whole. 15
Since the first message sent across two comput-
If Markram is right in his conjecture regarding a ers in October 1969 as a part of the early ARPANET, the
holistic approach to replace an outmoded reductionist view, internet has grown at an astounding pace. Contemporary
then we might see many other areas of science following maps of the convoluted landscape of routers, servers, and
From Tre es to N et works 55
fig. 10
Paul Baran, Network models, 1964
fig. 11
A map of the Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network (ARPANET)
from September 1971, showing some
of its earliest nodes: at University of
California, Los Angeles; University
of California, Santa Barbara; Rand
Corporation; Massachusetts Institute of
Technology; and Harvard University.
From F. Heart, A. McKenzie, J.
McQuillian, and D. Walden, ARPANET
Completion Report, January 4, 1978.
fig. 12
A map of an expanding ARPANET
from March 1977. Heart, McKenzie,
McQuillian, and Walden, ARPANET
Completion Report.
Ch a p t e r 2 56
connections are astonishingly complex, highlighting one of common citizens, through the use of empowering online
the most intricate man-made structures. But one of the most tools and services, the next web revolution will be even
interesting attributes of the internet is that it sustains another more powerful.
equally tangled network of nodes and links, embodying an While there are millions of information-embedded
enormous volume of data: the World Wide Web. web pages online, they are, in most cases, unable to auto-
Twenty years after the famous ARPANET experiment, matically extract knowledge from their inherent interconnec-
in 1990, English physicist Tim Berners-Lee and Belgian tions. A single neuron is insignificant, but as it communicates
scientist Robert Cailliau, while working for the European with thousands of neighbors through synapses, it suddenly
Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, becomes part of a whole, much bigger than the sum of its
proposed the construction of a web of nodes that could parts. This whole keeps changing over time by the addi-
store hypertext pages visualized by browsers in a cer- tion and deletion of nodes, increasing or decreasing the
tain network. The original name for this global hypertext strength of their connections, in order to constantly adapt
system was mesh, but in December of the same year, it to human experience and new learning requirements. It is
was launched with its brand new designation: World Wide through this process that the brain retrieves an old memory,
Web. After the first hypertext pages were added to the web, analyzes the thread of a sudden event, or composes an
it was just a matter of time until other websites followed argument for a particular idea. This is the level of mal-
in a vertiginous expansion. In June 1993 there were only leability, commonly called neuroplasticity, that the web is
about 130 websites in the whole world. By June of 1998 expected to develop in the next few years or decades.
the web had grown to 2,410,067, and by June 2003 there It might certainly take longer than that, but there
were 40,936,076 indexed websites. Currently the number are several signs attesting to this neurological transforma-
is greater than two hundred million, and it might be con- tion of the web. Not only is data becoming more widely
siderably higher, given that many websites include other accessibleas companies, institutions, and governments
websites under the same domain, and a remaining number open their data sets to the general publicit is also becom-
is undocumented and far from the reach of legal estimates. ing enriched with prolific metadata, allowing new sets of
This proliferation of websites denotes the vitality of comparison and interweaving. In a March 2009 talk at
the World Wide Web, mostly due to its underlying demo- Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) conference,
cratic distribution of information. According to professors Berners-Lee made a vehement exaltation for linked data.
of Communication and Creative Arts at Purdue University One year later, in February 2010, he came back to the
Calumet Lee Artz and Yahya R. Kamalipour, this massively renowned conference to corroborate his vision with various
complex network constitutes an information biosphere ...a practical examples, stating that if people put data on the
single, interconnected information organism of free expres- webgovernment data, scientific data, community data
sion and free trade. 16
fig. 13 But if currently the autonomous whatever it is, it will be used by other people to do wonder-
web is mostly characterized by the enhanced influence of ful things in ways they never could have imagined.17
From Tre es to N et works 57
fig. 14 fig. 15
A typical corporate organizational This radial organization chart highlights
chart, showing the hierarchical structure the centralized decision-making power
from the president to the individual structure of most companies, with the
workman. From Smith, Graphic Statistics president at the very core, followed by
in Management. successive degrees of dependency.
From Smith, Graphic Statistics in
Management.
From Tre es to N et works 59
management models based on centralized control. Many would immediately emerge. The further the Spanish
of these ideas are still so ingrained in our modern existence charged, the more decentralized and hard to conquer the
that it is hard to relinquish them. fig. 14, fig. 15 Apaches became.
We tend to consider social hierarchy as the norm This particular chapter of history is not entirely dis-
across societies and, in some cases, as a necessity or soci- tant from present-day news headlines announcing the state
ological predisposition. But in fact, many past and present- of affairs between armies and terrorist cells. Although with
day hunter-gatherer societies have little or no concept of an entirely distinct nature and political motivation, the main
economic or political status, class, or permanent leader- tool of terrorist resistance today is the same as the one
ship. Many indigenous communities in the Americas and perpetrated by the Apache four hundred years ago: decen-
Australia today follow the same type of decentralized and tralization.
egalitarian structure, since stratification is broadly seen as Decentralized social groups are not only common
a cause of conflict and instability. in hunter-gatherers and terrorist networks, but continue to
In The Starfish and the Spider (2006), Ori Brafman grow today, more than in any other period since the Indus-
and Road Beckstrom describe the difficulties encountered trial Revolution, challenging many secular theories and
by the Spanish conquistadors when facing the leaderless also becoming intrinsically associated with our technologi-
Apache tribes in the sixteenth century in present-day New cal progress. As Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams
Mexico. The Spanish tried to convert them to Christian- affirm in their bestselling Wikinomics (2006), Profound
ity and to a sedentary agrarian lifestyle, but the Apache changes in the nature of technology, demographics, and
resisted and fought back and held them off for two centu- the global economy are giving rise to powerful new mod-
ries. It wasnt that the Apaches had some secret weapon els of production based on community, collaboration,
that was unknown to the Incas and the Aztecs. Nor had and self-organization rather than on hierarchy and con-
the Spanish army lost its might, explain the authors. No, trol.19 Wikinomics is just one of many books published
the Apache defeat of the Spanish was all about the way in the last few years exploring the topic of decentraliza-
the Apaches were organized as a societya simple, yet tion and its effects on modern society. Much has been
complex flattened layout, typical of a decentralized con- written, blogged, and discussed on the evolution of this
figuration.18 new nonstratified scheme, usually coupled with encourag-
Decentralized social structures do not have a leader ing democratized ideas such as the wisdom of crowds,
in control or defined ranks, and most importantly, they have democratic journalism, local decision, self-empowerment,
no headquarters. Additionally, when attacked, central- independence, and self-organization, and repeatedly illus-
ized systems tend to become even more centralized, while trated by its main frontrunners: Wikipedia, the open-source
decentralized organizations become more open and decen- movement, Craigslist, and Digg.
tralized. Even when the Spanish went after and started As the web is a prime case of a leaderless structure,
killing Nantans (a type of spiritual leader), new Nantans embodied by its overlaying mesh of self-governing information
Ch a p t e r 2 60
fig. 16
Linkfluence, CPAN Explorer, 2009
nodes, it is not surprising that the most well-known cases of Classif ying Information
decentralization are happening on the web. This growing The need to store and organize information has been
autonomy is also fomenting a critical social behavior that with us since early Sumerian times, but it is from medieval
sustains many online services and initiatives. In Thomas L. Europe that we have the most vivid ancient accounts. In the
Friedmans international bestselling book The World is Flat twelfth century, the emergence of universities marked the
(2005), he describes ten flattenerskey drivers for trans- decline of the great cloister libraries and the rise of a new
forming the world into a level playing field. Among them is form of knowledge archive: the university library. As these
what Friedman considers to be the most subversive force of new centers of scholarly teaching and research became
all: online collaboration. fig. 16 increasingly independent from religion, they expanded
When geography and the speed of communication their curricula to include secular disciplines, propelling an
are no longer obstacles, collaboration is virtually unlimited. exuberant intellectual activity and an intense eagerness for
The web is not only a data biosphere but also a social bio- even more knowledgein the form of books. This fervor
sphere with access to an increasingly diverse set of online was soon met with an increase in book production, aided
communication tools that are environments for globalized by the invention of printing and cheaper paper. fig. 17
collaboration and community building. As professor of new The insatiability for information led to challenges
media Geert Lovink eloquently states, What defines the in indexing many of the newly discovered works. Profes-
Internet is its social architecture. Its the living environment sor Alfred W. Crosby explains in The Measure of Reality
that counts, the live interaction, not just the storage and (1996) how medieval schoolmen were at loss for a prin-
retrieval procedure. 20
ciple by which to arrange masses of information for easy
As the intricacy of online social network services retrieval.21 Alternative categorization systems had to be
and their inherent collaboration increases, so does the devised, with many new indices featuring Arabic numer-
prospect of a human collective intelligence, a sphere of als, which had just started to disseminate across Europe.
human thought, or noosphere, as it was famously called Strangely enough, one of the solutions to the dilemma, just
by Russian mineralogist and geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky. before the use of alphabetization became standard in the
In fact, the image of someone closing their laptop and turn- twelfth century, was quite distinct from most modern objec-
ing off their online status is quickly becoming an illustration tive taxonomies. Looking at the arrangement of information
of the past, as the virtual web becomes more and more through a subjective lens, medieval schoolmen organized
intertwined with real life. As it continues to expand and library catalogs by order of prestige, beginning with the
pervade every level of human activity, the web also diffuses Bible, followed by books on and by the church fathers
many of its collaborative social models based on decen- (influential theologians, Christian teachers, and bishops),
tralization and democratization, and the effects of this con- and so on, with books on liberal arts coming last.22
ceptual permeation might create an everlasting shift in the Many generations later, on the other side of the
stratification of society. ocean, American librarian Melvil Dewey (18511931)
Ch a p t e r 2 62
devised one of the most relevant contributions to knowl- for navigation, letting us climb down branches to get to
edge organization. Created in 1876, the Dewey Decimal the leaf were looking for.23 More recently a new method
Classification (DDC) method is a widely used library clas- has emerged that promises to cut across the branches and
sification system based on decimal numbers. Having under- reach forthwith for the leaves.
gone twenty-two major revisions, the last one in 2004, its Initially used in online services such as Flickr, Del.
uncomplicated structure has been adopted by innumerous icio.us, and YouTube, folksonomy is a method employed by
libraries, both in the United States and abroad. thousands of websites, services, and applications. A term
As the founder of the American Metric Bureauan coined by information architect Thomas Vander Wal in July
organization established in Boston in 1876 with the goal of 2004, folksonomy is a portmanteau of folk and taxonomy,
promoting the metric system in the United StatesDewey and is also known as social classification or social tagging.
was a passionate supporter of the decimal system of mea- Folksonomy is an alternative system for categorizing con-
surement first adopted by France, which in part explains his tent by means of informal tagsspecific keywords assigned
preference for the inherent simplicity of powers of ten. The to a piece of information (e.g., a web page, video, image,
system he created organizes all knowledge into ten classes computer file)which describe the item and facilitate its
(e.g., Religion [100], Social Sciences [200], and Literature retrieval during browsing or searching. This emergent bot-
[800]). These classes are subdivided into ten divisions, and tom-up classification is intrinsically distinct from top-down
each division into ten sections. fig. 18 To locate a particular hierarchies like the Dewey system. In DDC, each book or
book on ecology, one would start on Science (500), then document has a unique reference in a single immutable
Life Sciences (570), and finally Ecology (577). In compari- hierarchical structure. In contrast, any digital object cre-
son, that same book on ecology would have a call number ated by folksonomy is defined by different tags (metadata),
QH540-549.5 under DDCs main competitor, the Library of allowing it to be ordered and located in multiple ways. It
Congress Classification (LCC) system. The unclutteredness is also a highly adaptable method, since it ultimately relies
of the purely numerical method was an important reason on the natural language of the community or individual
for its widespread adoption, but even though the simplest using it. fig. 19
of its kind, DDC is still based on an absolute tree arrange- In an interesting reference to this phenomenon,
ment of fixed positions, allowing for few, if any, interlinks. David Weinberger, who has been following this change
Other methods have challenged Deweys structure, some up close, states: Autumn has come to the forest of knowl-
using the notion of faceted classification, which is based edge, thanks to the digital revolution. The leaves are fall-
on calling out clearly defined properties of a book (e.g., ing and the trees are looking bare. We are discovering
title, author, subject, year). But both trees and faceted that traditional knowledge hierarchies that have served
systems specify the categories, or facets, ahead of time, us so well are unnecessarily restricted when it comes to
explains technologist, writer, and philosopher David Wein- organizing information in the digital world.24 According
berger. They both present users with tree-like structures to Weinberger, while the old method conceived immutable
fig. 17
Jan Cornelius Woudanus, Leiden
University Library, 1610
fig. 18 (above)
fig. 19 (left)
trees, the new creates piles of leaves in an idiosyncratic, possibly causing an important shift in the long run. Will
flexible way. folksonomy be a point of departure for profound structural
The adoption of folksonomy would certainly have change or a mere fad portrayed in history as a transitory
been much less likely if not for the significant advances in alternative to the hierarchical tree model? Only time will tell.
modern computer science, particularly in search algorithms
and data mining. In the past it would have been unthink-
able to conceive a folksonomic model without an advanced Ordering Nature
computerized system that could facilitate the simultaneous Our long obsession for orderly arrangement can be
search and retrieval of thousands of items. Recent progress best observed in the keystone of science: the classification
has also placed folksonomy in the midst of a much larger of the natural world. As in the establishment of knowledge
technological movementinfluenced by parallel advances classification, we turn to Aristotle for the first proposal on
in tracking and navigation satellite systems, microchip the division of living things as a linear gradation principle.
implants, and radio-frequency identifiersthat aims at con- The most well-known student of Plato and the teacher of
verting a variety of objects (physical or digital) into intel- Alexander the Great, Aristotle was highly dedicated to the
ligible, reachable, and indexable entities. tangible world. His views on the physical sciences, pub-
It is still too early to speculate on the role of folk- lished as a collection of treatises in his seminal Physica
sonomy in the next few years or decades, and some might (Physics) (ca. 350 BC), have been a key influence in medi-
even say that it will never be as dominant as it promises. eval erudition and an impetus for many radical views lead-
One of these hushing voices is renowned information ing to the Scientific Revolution. Aristotles conception of a
architect Peter Morville, who considers the revolutionary natural philosophy, dedicated to the uncovering of natu-
rhetoric of the free-tagging movement behind folksonomy ral phenomena, was the precursor of the natural sciences
to be an overhyped exaggeration. Although acknowledg- and the dominant term referring to scientific inquiry before
ing the benefits of folksonomy as a trendspotting and per- the emergence of modern science.
sonal bookmarking tool, Morville says in his book Ambient Both Plato and Aristotle believed in universalism (a
Findability (2005) that when it comes to findability, folk- school of thought that believes in universal facts or prop-
sonomies inability to handle equivalence, hierarchy, and erties), but while Plato contemplated the universal apart
other semantic relationships causes them to fail miserably from particular thingssince the particular was merely
at any significant scale.... If forced to choose between the a prototype or imitation of an ideal formAristotle saw
old and new, Ill take the ancient tree of knowledge over the universal in particular things, in what he considered
the transient leaves of popularity any day. 25
to be the essence of things. His belief in essentialismthe
Whatever your view on the topic, one thing is indu- presence of an immutable essence in every objectled
bitable: this innovative system has brought a new agility and to the desire for an absolute ordering of nature, a perfect
malleability to the way we index and access information, universe, where all species are hierarchically arranged
From Tre es to N et works 65
in a natural ladder from lowest to highest. Even though Swedish physician and zoologist Carl Linnaeus (1707
some of the classes and divisions he set forth in Historia 1778). The Linnaean taxonomy, as it was later called, was
Animalium (History of animals), published circa 350 BC, set forth in his Systema naturae (1735) and organized
quickly became obsolete, others, such as genus, species, nature into three main kingdoms: Regnum animale (ani-
and substance, have endured for a long time and still reso- mal), Regnum vegetabile (vegetable), and Regnum lapi-
nate in modern natural taxonomies. deum (mineral). Based on a nested hierarchy of successive
Throughout the Middle Ages, many of Aristotles categories, or ranks, kingdoms were divided into classes,
ideas were revived, expanded, and sometimes misrepre- and classes were divided into orders, and so on, until the
sented. Scala naturae (natural ladder), commonly referred very last rank. Organisms were essentially grouped by
to as the Great Chain of Being, was a medieval philo- their shared physical traits, and many were kept in similar
sophical concept that viewed the world as a hierarchical arrangements until modern times. fig. 20
tree of virtues, which assessed the most heavenly virtues of With the recognition of Darwins theory of evolution
all matter and life on the planet. Different versions of this as the central principle for species formation, Linnaeuss
partisan system have been developed over the centuries, classification somewhat fell out of favor. This is where phy-
highlighting particular beliefs or ideologies of the time. logenetics came in. Seen as the history of the descendants
Some placed God in the very pinnacle of the hierarchy, of living beings, or the study of evolutionary association
with angels immediately below, followed by members of across different groups of organisms, phylogenetics is a
the church, laymen, animals, and plants, until the very last contemporary by-product of Darwins drastic biological
foundational layer, earth itself. Other variations, based on revolution, which greatly informed the naming and classifi-
the Divine Right of Kingsa doctrine of royal absolutism cation of species.26 Central to its study is the Phylogenetic
in which the monarch is subject to no earthly authority treea hierarchical representation of evolutionary rela-
positioned the king at the very top of the ladder, above tionships between ranges of biological species that share a
the aristocratic lords, with the peasants below them. Appli- common ancestor. Darwin himself suggested such an evo-
cable in limitless circumstances, scala naturae was always lutionary tree, in a rough sketch back in 1837. fig. 21 Years
portrayed as an immutable linear gradation of perfection, later his tree concept would be materialized in his seminal
or heavenly virtue. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
The Renaissance gave rise to serious efforts to cat- (1859). The only illustration in this masterpiece appears in
egorize a growing number of unidentified species, par- the fourth chapter, Natural Selection, in what he denomi-
ticularly through the work of naturalists and physicians, nated the Tree of Life. Further in the chapters summary,
including Conrad von Gesner, Andrea Cesalpino, Robert Darwin expands on the tree metaphor to better explain his
Hooke, John Ray, Augustus Rivinus, and Joseph Pitton de views on evolution:
Tournefort. But one of the greatest contributions to biologi-
cal classification and nomenclature came a bit later, by
Ch a p t e r 2 66
fig. 20
The taxonomic ranks of the fruit fly,
the modern human, and the pea, in a
hierarchical tree according to Linnaean
taxonomy
fig. 21 fig. 22
A diagram of an evolutionary tree, from Tree of Life, from Charles Darwin, The
Charles Darwin, First Notebook on Origin of Species, 1859
Transmutation of Species, 1837
This illustration, the only one featured in
This simple sketch alludes to the the first edition of Darwins masterpiece,
branching of lineages, similar to the popularized the notion of the
splitting of a trees trunk, and marks evolutionary tree and later catalyzed
the first-known representation of an the field of phylogenetics.
evolutionary tree. Above the sketch,
Darwin wrote, I think.
From Tre es to N et works 67
The affinities of all the beings of the same years and years of change and adaptation. This genea-
class have sometimes been represented by a logical variable, however, brought a big dilemma to bio-
great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks logical sciences, as Sigrid Weigel points out in her brilliant
the truth. The green and budding twigs may Genealogy: On the Iconography and Rhetorics of an Epis-
represent existing species; and those produced temological Topos. Biologists had to not only strive for the
during former years may represent the long constancy required in a classification system agreed by all
succession of extinct species. At each period but also embrace variation and modification as part of evo-
of growth all the growing twigs have tried to lutionary change. This was understandably a cumbersome
branch out on all sides, and to overtop and endeavor.
kill the surrounding twigs and branches, in the The continuous challenge of combining uniformity
same manner as species and groups of species and variety in an integrated model has recently suffered
have at all times overmastered other species in a major quiver, with scientists having to rethink their
the great battle for life. 27
approach to phylogenetics. The first significant change is
technical and relates to new methods of analysis. While
Darwin was well aware of the importance of the most early evolutionary trees were based on morphologi-
tree schema and considered it at the core of his thinking. cal attributes (appearance and physical traits), the more
In a letter to his publisher John Murray, sent on May 31, recent trees are constructed using molecular data (based
1859, a few months before the publication of his scientific on genetic and molecular sequencing). By providing an
landmark, Darwin writes: Enclosed is the Diagram which I alternative way of looking at the shared relationships
wish engraved on Copper on folding out Plate to face latter between species, this approach has introduced uncer-
part of volume.It is an odd looking affair, but is indis- tainty to established labeling conventions. The second,
pensable to show the nature of the very complex affinities and the most current, upheaval runs much deeper and has
of past & present animals.28 This indispensable illustration caused a major shift in the way we conceive the classifica-
is, according to Darwin, not a secondary element to his tion of biodiversity.
narrative but a crucial symbol of his idea. fig. 22 In June 2005 a group of researchers from the Com-
The notion of a tree as a classification system was putational Genomics Group at the European Bioinformatics
nothing new and neither was its applicability to the organi- Institute (EBI) published an influential paper entitled The Net
zation of species. We had seen it before in the Great Chain of Life: Reconstructing the Microbial Phylogenetic Network.
of Being, and much of the work developed by Aristotle, In this study, the EBI team, lead by Christos Ouzounis, set
Leibniz, and Linnaeus. fig. 23 However, Darwin introduced up a new vision for evolution classification based on net-
a critical unsettling element to the equation: time. Darwins works, rather than trees, in which the genomic history of
evolutionary tree was no longer a static immutable image most microbial species is a mosaic, with a significant amount
of the present but a shifting dynamic model, encompassing of horizontal gene transfer present.29
Ch a p t e r 2 68
fig. 23
A diagram of the tree of life. From Ernst
Haeckel, Generelle morphologie der
organismen (General morphology of
organisms), 1866.
fig. 24
A three-dimensional representation of
the net of lifean alternative version
to the common tree of life. Red lines,
depicting horizontal gene transfer,
tie individual bacteria and archaea,
which all originate from a common
root depicted in orange. From V.
Kunin, L. Goldovsky, N. Darzentas,
and C. A. Ouzounis, The Net of
Life: Reconstructing the Microbial
Phylogenetic Network, Genome
Research 15, no. 7 ( July 2005):
95459.
From Tre es to N et works 69
theory of complexity is tremendous and may lead to major 16 Artz and Kamalipour, The Globalization of Corporate
Media Hegemony, 118.
improvements in health, stability, and security of most sys- 17 Berners-Lee, Tim Berners-Lee.
tems around us. As physicist and complex-network expert 18 Brafman, The Starfish and the Spider, 18.
19 Tapscott and Williams, Wikinomics, 1.
Albert-Lszl Barabsi declares in Linked (2003): Once 20 Lovink, The Principle of Notworking, 11.
we stumble across the right vision of complexity, it will take 21 Crosby, The Measure of Reality, 63.
22 Ibid.
little to bring it to fruition. When that will happen is one of
23 Ibid.
the mysteries that keeps many of us going.34 24 Ibid.
25 Morville, Ambient Findability, 139.
26 Lecointre and Le Guyader, The Tree of Life, 5.
27 Darwin, The Origin of Species, 171.
28 Darwin Correspondence Project Database.
29 Ibid.
30 Gogarten, Horizontal Gene Transfer.
31 Ibid.
32 Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 20.
33 New York Times, Emotions Mapped by New Geography.
34 Barabsi, Linked, 238.
fig. 25
A partial food web, depicting predator- fully described. Furthermore, not all
prey relationships between species speciesincluding some of the marine
at the Scotian Shelf in the Northwest mammalsspend the entire year in
Atlantic off of the east coast of the area.
Canada. Species names enclosed
in rectangles are of those exploited
by humans, with cod at the heart of
the convoluted network. Despite its
remarkable intricacy, this food web
is incomplete, because the feeding
habits of all participants have not been
72
Networks are everywhere. It is a structural and orga- multitude of interconnecting elements. As an important
nizational model that pervades almost every subject, driving force for understanding the complex connected-
from genes to power systems, from social communi- ness of modern society, network science has innumerous
ties to transportation routes. This ubiquitous topology applications in fields such as physics, economics, biology,
is the object of study in network science, a new thriv- computer science, sociology, ecology, and epidemiology.
ing discipline aiming to uncover the inherent princi- Although the disciplines considerable expansion occurred
ples and behaviors that regulate a variety of natural only fairly recently, its roots go back to the first half of the
and artificial systems, normally characterized by a eighteenth century.
The Birth of Net work Science assert that it could be done. From this, I have
Although human beings have previously envisioned formulated the general problem: whatever be
models of networklike structures, the first documented the arrangement and division of the river into
mathematical analysis of the process occurred in 1736 by branches, and however many bridges there
Leonhard Euler (17071783). Euler was a prolific mathema- be, can one find out whether or not it is pos-
tician and a key contributor to the fields of calculus, optics, sible to cross each bridge exactly once?1
fluid dynamics, astronomy, and geometry. But it was in the
explanation of a witty mathematical problem that Euler Eulers answer to the problem was shown in a paper
became forever associated with network science. published in 1736 entitled Solutio problematis ad geometriam
Founded in 1255, the city of Knigsbergin mod- situs pertinentis (Solution of a problem relating to the geom-
ern-day Kaliningrad, Russiasat on the banks of the Pregel etry of position), in which he rigorously proves by means
River. Within the river were two large islands, which were of a pioneering analytical method that such a path does
connected to each other and the adjacent riverbanks by not exist. In an extended English translation of the paper
seven bridges. fig. 1 A popular pastime of Knigsbergs citi- in Graph Theory 17361936 (1976), by Norman L. Biggs,
zens in the eighteenth century was to find a route where E. Keith Lloyd, and Robin J. Wilson, Euler starts his argu-
one could cross all seven bridges without crossing the same ment by shunning the conventional procedure of making
one twice. Euler was amused by this dilemma and was an exhaustive list of all possible routes, and then finding
determined to solve it: whether or not any route satisfies the conditions of the prob-
lem.2 As he explains, due to the large number of possible
Concerning these bridges, it was asked paths, this solution would be too exhausting and probably
whether anyone could arrange a route in such impossible to execute in a scenario with more than seven
a way that he would cross each bridge once bridges. Euler rejects this approach and suggests a new,
and only once. I was told that some people groundbreaking one:
asserted that this was impossible, while oth-
ers were in doubt; but nobody would actually My whole method relies on the particularly
convenient way in which the crossing of a
bridge can be represented. For this I use the
capital letters A, B, C, D, for each of the land
areas separated by the river. If a traveler goes
from A to B over bridge a or b, I write this as
ABwhere the first letter refers to the area the
traveler is leaving, and the second refers to the
area he arrives at after crossing the bridge.
fig. 1
The original sketch of the seven bridges
of Knigsberg, from Leonhard Euler,
Solutio problematis ad geometriam
situs pertinentis (Solution of a problem
relating to the geometry of position),
1736
D e co ding N et works 75
Thus, if the traveler leaves B and crosses into approach, particularly by mathematical giants such as
D over bridge f, this crossing is represented Augustin Louis Cauchy, William Rowan Hamilton, Arthur
by BD, and the two crossings AB and BD com- Cayley, Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, and George Plya.4
bined I shall denote by the three letters ABD, But most of these efforts remained within the confines of
where the middle letter B refers to both the area mathematics. Strangely enough, even the burst of original-
which is entered in the first crossing and to the ity in mid-nineteenth-century cartographywith the map-
one which is left in the second crossing. 3
ping of statistical data, originally pioneered by William
Playfairs seminal work The Commercial and Political Atlas
(1786)remained immune to the appeal of the network
diagram. Network science would have to wait a couple of
centuries for another pioneer in network representation to
provide a significant breakthrough.
Psychological Geography
Psychologist Jacob Moreno was born in 1889 in
the city of Bucharest, Romania, and spent most of his youth
and early career in Vienna, Austria, where he graduated
with a medical degree in 1917. While studying at the
University of Vienna, Moreno attended Sigmund Freuds
Euler essentially reformulated the problem in abstract (18561939) lectures and became an early challenger of
terms, isolating the seven bridges as a series of edges (links) his theories. While Freud favored meeting people individu-
connecting the different landmasses represented by vertices ally in the artificial setting of his office, Moreno believed in
(nodes). fig. 2 Even though Euler did not use any of these the power of group settings for therapy, which could only
modern terms, he did however deconstruct the problem in be accurately conducted in their natural environmentthe
such a way that suggests a type of simplified scheme, com- street, the park, the community. The latter also opposed
monly called a graph in mathematics. Eulers ability to look the emphasis on the unconscious mind: Moreno was more
at the problem from a topological perspectiveby conceiv- interested in the conscious process, the here and now, the
ing the bridges challenge as a graphlaid the foundation creativity of the person, than the unconscious process, the
for graph theory (the study of graphs in mathematics and past and the resistance of the patient, writes Morenos
computer science) and, consequently, network science. biographer Ren Marineau.5
In the evolution of graph theory, there has been a In order to further pursue his ongoing research on
great deal of work developed after Eulers foundational his theory of interpersonal relations, Moreno moved to New
fig. 2
Graph theory was born thanks to
Leonhard Eulers deconstruction of the
mathematical problem of the seven
bridges in an abstract graph. In it, the
land areas are represented by four
nodes connected by seven links, which
correspond to the bridges.
Ch a p t e r 3 76
York City at the age of thirty-six. The following years saw charts, explained Moreno, we will have the opportunity
Moreno become increasingly motivated by the prospect of to grasp the myriad networks of human relations and at the
visually representing social structures, and seven years after same time view any part or portion of the whole which we
his arrival in the United States, at a convention of medical may desire to relate or distinguish.7
scholars, Moreno presented one of his most famous cre- A year later Moreno expanded many of his initial
ations: the sociogram. Morenos sociogram introduced a ideas in what came to be known as the paramount work on
graphic representation of social ties between a group of sociometry, Who Shall Survive? A New Approach to The
boys and girls from one elementary school, marking the Problem of Human Interrelations (1934). The work contains
beginning of sociometry, which later came to be known as some of the earliest graphical depictions of social networks
social network analysisa field of sociology dealing with and exposes Morenos appreciation for the power of visu-
the mapping and measuring of relationships between peo- alization. fig. 4 In his discourse, Moreno explains that the
ple (e.g., kinship, friendship, common interests, financial sociogram is not simply a method of presentation but a
exchange, sexual relationships). The idea of a measurable method of exploration.... It is at present the only available
sociogram became a decisive turning point in the quantita- scheme, which makes structural analysis of a community
tive evaluation of an individuals role in a community, but possible.8
it also demonstrated, for the very first time, the enticing Canadian psychologist Mary Northway dedicated
power of network visualization. almost three decades of research to the topic of sociometry,
Morenos network depiction was so captivating that while working as an associate professor at the University of
it was printed in a 1933 article, Emotions Mapped by Toronto. Her book A Primer of Sociometry (1953) elaborates
New Geography: Charts Seek to Portray the Psychological on Morenos foundational work, advancing a sociometric
Currents of Human Relationships, in the New York Times. test consisting of asking each person in a group whom they
The novel practice merited the label psychological geog- would choose to associate with for a particular activity or
raphy by the journalist, who was impressed with the dia- event. With the results of the inquiry, each person could
gram presented by Moreno: A mere glance at the chart be attributed a specific sociometric score based on their
shows the strange human currents that flow in all directions choices, depending on how many people they selected
from each individual in the group toward other individuals, and how many people selected them.9 These results would
from group to group, and from the entire group toward then be plotted in a sociogramnow called a social net-
the individuals. Each group has its popular and unpopular work diagram.
members, and here and there an individual stands totally A few years before A Primer of Sociometry,
alone, isolated from the rest of the group. The article was
6
Northway had already introduced a new visualization
illustrated with one of Morenos sociograms, which showed technique, called the target sociogram. fig. 5 fig. 6 This
two independent groups, boys and girls, and links within method is composed of four concentric circles, correspond-
each group and between the groups. fig. 3 With these ing to different scoring outcomes in the aforementioned
fig. 3
Jacob Moreno, one of the first
sociograms, published in the New
York Times, April 3, 1933, showing the
relationships within a class of fourth
graders. Boys (triangles) are on the left
and girls (circles) on the right.
fig. 4 fig. 5
Typical Structures within Groups, from Target sociogram of a nursery school,
Moreno, Who Shall Survive?, 1934 from Mary Northway, A Primer of
Sociometry, 1953
This visual lexicon, from Morenos rejected by fifteen individuals within
seminal book, shows a set of possible and outside of her own group (8). The target sociogram shows four
sociogram constructs and scenarios, concentric circles and four quadrants
ranging from total isolation (1), to relating to four groups: senior boys,
an individual being attracted to six senior girls, junior boys, and junior
others outside of her group (2), to a girls.
more complex structure defined by an
individual rejecting six and also being
Ch a p t e r 3 78
sociometric test: Each circle may be used to represent the beyond the mere geometric construct, employing elemen-
four quartiles or the four levels of probability, significantly tary design principles aimed at an efficient and compre-
above chance, above chance, below chance, and signifi- hensible representation of the targeted system.
cantly below chance. 10
This way, the mere placement of Networks have multiple interpretations and defi-
nodes on a target sociogramsmall triangles for males nitions, usually depending on the particular discipline
and small circles for femalescould easily portray the like- responsible for studying the network. There are also numer-
lihood of being selected among the different members of ous insights that can be extracted from these structures:
a community while still maintaining a high level of graphic What are the nodes doing? How are they interacting? How
clarity. Inspired by these developments, Dorothy McKenzie, many connections do they have? What are they sharing?
the supervisor of the nursery school at the Institute of Child This series of queries can lead to the identification of a
Study, a laboratory school and research institute at the taxonomy, or topological truth, of the analyzed network. In
University of Toronto where Northway taught, designed this pursuit, network visualization can be a remarkable dis-
and constructed a target sociogram board. fig. 7 Modeled covery tool, able to translate structural complexity into per-
on a childs pegboard, this physical device allowed the ceptible visual insights aimed at a clearer understanding. It
easy mock-up of a target sociogram by means of movable is through its pictorial representation and interactive analy-
pegs (standing for nodes) and rubber bands (linkages), in sis that modern network visualization gives life to many
what can be considered a forerunner of modern-day com- structures hidden from human perception, providing us with
puterized, interactive depictions. an original map of the territory. Even though social net-
works (relationships of friendship, kinship, collaboration,
common interest) have the longest history of quantitative
The Cartography of Net works study and analysis, network visualization explores numer-
Since these developments pioneered by Moreno ous phenomena, particularly in technological networks (the
and Northway, many other researchers have dedicated World Wide Web, train systems, air routes, power grids),
their time and energy to the depiction of network diagrams, knowledge networks (classification systems, information
increasingly through the use of computer software algo- exchange, semantic relationships between concepts), and
rithms. Today network representation is commonly pursued biological networks (protein-interaction networks, genetic-
under two main areas: graph drawing (under graph theory) regulatory networks, neural networks).
and network visualization (under information visualization). A highly influential tradition for network visualiza-
In both disciplines graph is the preferred term to describe tion, besides the intellectual legacy of graph theory and the
the pictorial depiction of a network through a set of vertices recent advancement of computer graphics, is cartography.
(nodes) connected by edges (links). But while graph draw- From the outstanding contribution of Ptolemys Geographia
ing, as the name implies, deals primarily with the math- (Geography) (ca. 150 AD), almost two millennia ago, and
ematical drawing of graphs, network visualization extends the notable mapmakers of the Age of Explorationwhich
Ch a p t e r 3 80
took place during the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth maps of these hidden structures are the only visual refer-
centuriesto the explosion of statistical mapping, or the- ence we have, constituting its own alternative territory.
matic mapping, in the mid-nineteenth century, the ancient There is a lot network visualization can learn from
heritage of cartography provides a rich setting for the cartography, particularly as an exemplary case of harmoni-
present development of network visualization. The bond ously combining science, aesthetics, and technique. A brief
between both areas may even be strengthened when histo- overview of the grammar of maps highlights the indubitable
rians examine the current efforts many decades from now. relationship between the two disciplines, as most maps,
After all, this burst of innovation, as network visualization similar to network representations, employ three basic
embraces a multitude of attempts at decoding complex sys- types of graphical markers: areas, line features, and point
tems, resembles a new golden age of cartography led by features.12 Not only are their ingredients similar, but also
invigorating aspirations for knowledge. Even though we many of their aspirations. Mapmaking and the charting
feel the need to label our contemporary endeavors in net- of networks are fundamentally bounded by similar goals of
work visualization as a unique and original practice, car- simplifying, clarifying, communicating, exploring, record-
tography might simply incorporate them as an evolutionary ing, and supporting.
step in its long practice. So what are the specific purposes of network visu-
Cartography has commonly been used as a vehicle alization? As a potential visual decoder of complexity, the
for the depiction of various abstract concepts and imagi- practice is commonly driven by five key functions: docu-
nary places. Nonetheless, its roots are in the representation ment, clarify, reveal, expand, and abstract.
of physical features of the natural environment: coastlines,
mountains, rivers, cities, and roads. Cartography is an illus- Document
tration of the tangible worldan abstraction of the thing Map a system that has never been depicted before. A result
itselfwhich ties back to philosopher Alfred Korzybskis of our inherent human curiosity, this goal is tied to the most
well-known expression that the map is not the territory.11 ancient cartographic ambition: to portray a new unfamil-
Korzybskis assertion triggers an age-old concern that iar territory. The map of a particular system can stimulate
equally applies to network visualization, warning against interest and awareness of a subject matter while naturally
the disproportionate belief in the trustworthiness of certain opening the door for further discoveries and interpreta-
maps. Any system can be depicted and interpreted in mul- tions. A key drive for many projects is the prospect of docu-
tiple ways, and a specific map delivers only one of many menting and recording the surveyed structure for posterior
possible views. But network visualization is also the cartog- knowledge.
raphy of the indiscernible, depicting intangible structures
that are invisible and undetected by the human eye, from Clarif y
eccentric visualizations of the World Wide Web to repre- Make the system more understandable, intelligible, and trans-
sentations of the brains neural network. In some cases, the parent. The central objective in this context is simplification
D e co ding N et works 81
to explain important aspects and clarify given areas of the Principles of Network Visualization
system. By communicating in a simple, effective way, the net- The pursuit of a rigorous classification of graphical
work visualizations become powerful means for information methods is not a contemporary ambition. Almost one hun-
processing and understanding. dred years ago, Willard Brinton, in his outstanding book
Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts (1914), pursued a
Reveal much-needed taxonomy for a growing discipline:
Find a hidden pattern in or explicit new insight into the sys-
tem, or in other words, a polished gem of knowledge from The rules of grammar for the English language
a flat data set. The goal of revealing should concentrate on are numerous as well as complex, and there
causality by leading the disclosure of unidentified relation- are about as many exceptions as there are
ships and correlations while also checking initial assump- rules. Yet we all try to follow the rules in spite
tions and central questions. of their intricacies. The principles for a gram-
mar of graphic presentation are so simple that
Expand a remarkably small number of rules would be
Serve as a vehicle for other uses and set the stage for fur- sufficient to give a universal language. It is
ther exploration. The subsequent expansion might relate to interesting to note, also, that there are possi-
the portrayal of multidimensional behaviors, or the depicted bilities of the graphic presentation becoming
structure might simply become a complementary part of a an international language, like music, which
larger work. In this context, the network is seen as the means is now written by such standard methods that
to an end, the underlying layer of additional visualizations sheet music may be played in any country.13
able to integrate multivariate data sets. Nodes and edges
become the terrain, in the same way many web-mapping At the end of the book, he identifies that though
services serve as the initial outline for further building and graphic presentations are used to a very large extent today,
expansion. there are at present no standard rules by which the person
preparing a chart may know that he is following good prac-
Abstract tice. This is unfortunate because it permits every one mak-
Explore the networked schema as a platform for abstract ing a chart to follow his own sweet will.14 In response to
representation. Network visualization can be a vehicle for this problem, he outlines twenty-five rules, simply described
hypothetical and metaphorical expression, depicting a as suggestions ...until such time as definite rules have been
variety of intangible concepts that might not even rely on agreed upon and sanctioned by authoritative bodies.15 From
an existing data set. broad guidelines suggesting a clear chart title where no mis-
interpretation is possible, to defining a specific line thickness
for curve graphs, Brintons list is insightful and extremely worth
Ch a p t e r 3 82
reading. He was well aware that it would take some time for identifying the question that you want to answer. Rather than
the appropriate bodies to come together and consent to a thinking about the data that was collected, think about how
system of graphical rules abided by all practitioners. it will be used and work backward to what was collected.
Some time has passedalmost a century to be You collect data because you want to know something
preciseand we are still as far from that target as Brinton about it. If you dont really know why youre collecting it,
was in 1914. In fact, some might argue that it is not yet the youre just hoarding it.16 It is only from the problem domain
time for a fixed set of norms. After all, one of the thrills of that we can ascertain that a layout may be better suited
being involved in an emerging field is the sense that it is and easier to understand than others. The initial question
being defined with every execution. But as the past decade works as a yardstick of your efforts, constantly evaluating
witnessed a meteoric rise in the visual representation of the effectiveness of your project as a measure for naturally
networks, it has made more pressing the need to reflect on filtering the essential from the superfluous.
what has been done and to propose ways to improve it. The definition of a question is vital and ties back to
Not all readers of this book will pursue their own the need for a clear purpose or goal in every execution.
network-visualization projects, but for those who do, the And sometimes, an initial question can lead to new compel-
following list of eight principles is meant to encourage and ling ones. This particularly explorative path is one of the
support their endeavors. The first four are larger univer- most engaging and fascinating traits of visualization.
sal considerations that, due to their broad assessment, can
be applied in a variety of graphical representations. The 2. Look for Relevancy
subsequent four encompass detailed principles, tackling After defining a central question, what normally
explicit challenges in the depiction of networks. follows is the quest for relevancy, which acts as a con-
stant thread throughout the project. As Dan Sperber and
1. Start with a Question Deirdre Wilson exposed in their influential Relevance:
He who is ashamed of asking is afraid of learning Communication and Cognition (1996), human cognition is
is a famous Danish proverb. A great quality for anyone relevance oriented: we pay attention to information that
doing work in the realm of visualization is inquisitiveness. seems relevant to us. This drives a natural expectation of
Every project should start with an inquiry that leads to fur- relevance in every act of communication. Something is
ther insights about the system and perhaps answer ques- said to be relevant if it serves as an effective means to a
tions that were not originally asked. This investigation might particular purpose or, more specifically, if it increases the
arise from a personal quest or the specific needs of a client likelihood of achieving an underlying goal. The measure of
or audience, but there should always be a defined query relevance is therefore primarily based on the intent of the
to drive the work. project and the validation of the initial question that set it
As Ben Fry states in his book Visualizing Data forward. A central responsibility of visualization is to fulfill
(2008), the most important part of understanding data is this expectation in the most effortless manner possible.
D e co ding N et works 83
In the context of visualization, relevancy comes should try to formulate her utterance in such a way as to
into place when selecting two central elements: the sup- spare the hearer gratuitous processing effort, so that the
porting data set (content) and the subsequent visualiza- first acceptable interpretation to occur to the hearer is the
tion techniques (method). Choosing the most relevant data one she intended to convey.17
set is naturally dependent on the goal of the execution,
but appropriateness does not necessarily translate into a 3. Enable Multivariate Analysis
direct correlation between data and purpose. Sometimes In many cases the depiction of a network is seen as
we need to look laterally for alternatives in order to find a binary system, where connections are simply turned on
the content that can most appropriately answer our ques- and off like transistors in a computer. But the ties among ele-
tion. In the 2006 visualization Tracing the Visitors Eye, ments in a network are immensely rich and detailed, and
researcher and computer scientist Fabien Girardin lever- the inclusion of additional information can be fundamen-
aged the rich image bank of Flickr to map the most popu- tal in the unveiling of many of these nuances. By embrac-
lar paths made by tourists in Barcelona; in Just Landed ing complementary data setsable to provide additional
(2009) (see page 150), digital artist and designer Jer information on the nature of nodes and respective tiesthe
Thorp looked into the content of Twitter messages, particu- system can easily expose causality in patterns and relation-
larly those starting with just landed in, to make a chart ships, contributing decisively to the holistic understanding
of popular travel destinations around the world. These of the depicted topology.
examples illustrate the idiosyncratic nature of this process, Lets suppose you are creating a visualization of a
recurrently involving a creative approach accentuated by network of rivers, where nodes represent key locations
lateral thinking. e.g., neighborhoods, cities, districts, regionscrossed by
The selection of the most suitable visualization the different streams. Now imagine the unique richness of
method for the project is largely determined by the cen- one single stream and the number of its oscillating vari-
tral question. However, this particular quest is equally ables: color and temperature of water, pollution levels,
dependent on the end users, their immediate context and tides, current speed, and width of stream bed, among many
expressed needs. Acknowledging the different contexts of other facets. Such a multivariate approach would be criti-
usewhen, where, and how the final execution will be cal in the interpretation of particular behaviors and poten-
usedis crucial in the pursuit of relevancy. tial accidents, by determining, for instance, the causes for
If the relevancy ratio is high, it can increase the water contamination, a sudden blockage, or overflow. But
possibility of comprehension, assimilation, and decision- such an affluent contemplation is not unique to this sce-
making, becoming a fundamental step in the transition from nario; it applies broadly to most types of networks. Try to
information into knowledge. The greater the processing think of how many elements you could consider when map-
effort, the lower the relevance. As linguistics professor Elly ping your own network of friends and the immense quali-
Ifantidou explains, A speaker aiming at optimal relevance tative richness that underlies each individual relationship,
Ch a p t e r 3 84
and you might have a better grasp of the importance of over time, investigate how it expands or shrinks, how rela-
integrating multivariate data sets. tionships evolve, and how certain nodes become more or
Multivariate analysis is a prerequisite in a variety less prominent. This, of course, should change.
of ongoing scientific endeavors that involve the interweav- Networks are evolving systems, constantly mutating
ing of a vast assortment of elements, and, as Bruce Mau and adapting. As physicists Mark Newman, Albert-Lszl
states in Massive Change (2004): When everything is con- Barabsi, and Duncan J. Watts explain, Many networks
nected to everything else, for better or worse, everything are the product of dynamical processes that add or remove
matters. In the end, we are multivariate beings involved in
18
vertices or edges....The ties people make affect the form
multivariate actions inhabiting a multivariate world. Nearly of the network, and the form of the network affects the ties
all the interesting worlds (physical, biological, imaginary, people make. Social network structure therefore evolves
human) we seek to understand are inevitably multivariate in in a historically dependent manner, in which the role of
nature, elucidates statistician Edward Tufte. As a longtime
19
the participants and the patterns of behavior they follow
advocate of this principle, Tufte explains in detail why this cannot be ignored.21 In some cases, the changes do not
consideration is vital: The analysis of cause and effect, ini- take weeks or months, but minutes or hours. And it is not
tially bivariate, quickly becomes multivariate through such only the network that adapts; whatever is being exchanged
necessary elaborations as the conditions under which the within the system also fluctuates over time (e.g., information,
causal relations holds, interaction effects, multiple causes, energy, water, a virus).
multiple effects, causal sequences, sources of bias, spuri- If we consider the vast hidden networks that sustain
ous correlations, sources of measurement error, competing our biosphere, we can truly understand how critical the
variables, and whether the alleged cause is merely a proxy dimension of time really is. After all, it is the particularly
or a market variable.20 dynamic nature of interconnecting ecosystems around the
world that poses one of the most difficult challenges to
4. Embrace Time our enduring effort to understand the intricacies of our
Time is one of the hardest variables to map in any planet. Even something seemingly as stable as the human
complex system. It is also one of the richest. If we consider brain is continuously adding or removing synapsesthe
a social network, we can quickly realize that a snapshot connections between neuronsin a process associated
in time can only tell us a bit of information about that com- with cognitive learning. Not to mention the internet, with
munity. Alternatively, if time were to be properly measured its constant flux of information and vast landscape of serv-
and mapped, it would provide us with a comprehensive ers, frequently adds or disconnects machines from the
understanding of the social groups changing dynamics. network. And time analysis does not only cover histori-
Out of the existing panoply of social-network-analysis tools cal evolution; it equally applies to real-time dynamics and
available, very few offer the ability to explore the network oscillations. fig. 8, fig. 9
fig. 8 (opposite)
A series of images from a movie made The data set consists of repeated
using SoNIA showing classroom observations in more than one hundred
interactions between teacher and fifty high school classrooms during the
students using 2.5-minute time slices. 199697 school year.
D e co ding N et works 85
W. Bradford Paley and Jeff Han, Trace Tom Carden, Travel Time Tube Map,
Encounters, 2004 2005
Expressive edges legend. A map legend is simple, yet vital, allowing for a
Edges are connectors in a graph and are a vital element quick interpretation of the various graphic components. This
in any network representationwithout them nodes would prevalent mapping practice should be widely adopted by
simply be hollow elements in space. But edges can express network visualization, making the vocabulary intelligible and
much more than a single connection between entities. For facilitating an immediate understanding of the final piece.
every relationship between nodes, there are innumerous
layers of quantitative and qualitative information pertain- 6. Expose Grouping
ing to the nature of the connection (e.g., geographical or The ability to showcase variation in a depicted sys-
emotional proximity, frequency of communication, duration tem is a central attribute of network visualization. This can
of friendship). be achieved not only by enriching the visual vocabulary but
Cartography is a great source for inspiration when also by exploring the potentialities of spatial arrangement.
examining the portrayal of edges. In a conventional country Spatial relationships are as important as explicit visual ties
map, a number of associations are evident: two major cities and are a critical element in exposing contrast and simi-
can be connected by a variety of line segmentsprimary larity. The concept of grouping is particularly significant
and secondary roads, train tracks, rivers, and alternative in this context, allowing for the improved apprehension of
pathsall depicted in a unique, discernable way. fig. 13 A clusters, islands, prominent patterns, and the general distri-
similar process could be applied for network visualization. bution of nodes and links. The idea of grouping is simply
The following factors should be considered in visualizing to combine several units of information into related chunks
edges: length to suggest a gradation of values, such as in order to reinforce relationships, reduce complexity, and
physical proximity, degree of relationship, strength, simi- improve cognition.
larity, or relatedness; width to express density or intensity Grouping can be pursued with a variety of crite-
of flow, or an alternative gradation of values; color to dif- ria in mind, ultimately depending on the central goal of
ferentiate or highlight particular groups, categories, and the execution. But in most cases, elements can be grouped
clusters, or alternatively, singular connections; shape to in five distinct ways: alphabetically, by time, by location,
communicate the type of relationship (e.g., family, friends, by a particular continuum (or scale), and by a specified
coworkers). fig. 14, fig. 15, fig. 16 category (e.g., images, videos, text). This procedure, first
proposed by Richard Saul Wurman in Information Anxiety
Clear visual language (2000), is known as the five hat racks, and it delivers an
One of the caveats behind the implementation of diverse effective way to organize most types of information.
graphical attributes is to beware of creating a visual lan- Another remarkable source of knowledge on
guage that might not be immediately recognized by every- the notion of grouping comes from Gestalt psychology.
one. We can flatten out the required learning curve by Emerging in the early twentieth century, by the hands of
simply embracing a widespread cartographic technique: the prominent psychologists Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and
D e co ding N et works 89
Eric Gaba and Bamse, Maps Template, TeleGeography, Traffic Flow Map,
2009 2000
A legend of the WikiProject Maps usually applied to different types of A map of the communication-traffic city, encode the countrys total annual
initiative, which provides advice points, e.g., capital, city, village, as flow between European countries. outgoing traffic to all other countries.
and templates for the creation of well as line features, e.g., highway, The width of the orange lines is
geographic and topographic maps secondary road, railway line, in many proportional to the annual volume of
on Wikipedia Commons, an online cartographic projects. traffic between countries, measured as
repository of free-use images, sound, one unit equaling one hundred million
and other media files. This excerpt of minutes of voice telecommunication.
the legend shows the graphical diversity Circular symbols, located on the capital
D e co ding N et works 90
A map of relationships between guests had collected and solicited from their
at Andrew Coulter Enright and Heather parents. By tying people with stories,
Sampless wedding. With the goal this original treatment of edges brings
of helping start conversations, the an appealing qualitative and personal
couple produced a chart of the tightly layer to the execution.
knit group of family and friends at the
wedding, connecting guests based
on favorite shared stories, which they
D e co ding N et works 91
Wolfgang Kohler, Gestalt psychology was a serious attempt are perceived as being more related than elements that are
at comprehending our perception of visual patterns. Some stationary or that move in different directions. This notion
of the results from their studies are still of immense impor- is particularly pertinent when trying to highlight contrast
tance to most forms of visual communication. Of particular through animation (e.g., depicting the changing dynamics
relevance are the devised rules of perceptual organization, of a network over time).
also known as Gestalt laws of grouping, which, by explain-
ing how people perceive a well-organized pattern, can 7. Maximize Scaling
easily translate into concise design principles. Three of the One of the biggest misconceptions in network visu-
Gestalt lawssimilarity, proximity, and common fateare alization is the notion that a representation that works at
particularly important rules in exposing groups in network one scale will also work at a larger or smaller scale. This
visualization. scaling fallacy is a fundamental cause for many misguided
projects. Not only do networks showcase different pat-
Law of similarit y (graphical treatment) terns and behaviors at different scales, but also the users
The law of similarity asserts that elements that are similar needs vary depending on his or her particular position with
either in terms of color, shape, or sizeare perceived to be respect to the network. When representing a network, it
more related than elements that are dissimilar. This Gestalt is important to consider three fundamental views in line
principle highlights the need for a differentiated graphical with a specific method of analysis: macro view, relationship
vocabulary in the depiction of nodes, as a critical mea- view, and micro view. fig. 17
sure for spotting similarities and differences and in order to
apprehend the overall distribution within the system. Macro view (pat tern)
A well-executed macro view does not have to provide a
Law of proximit y (spatial arrangement) detailed understanding of individual links, and less so of
The law of proximity states that elements that are close individual nodes. It should provide a birds-eye view into
together are perceived as being more related than elements the network and highlight certain clusters, as well as iso-
that are farther apart. This organizing principle proves that lated groups, within its structure. As the common entry
relatedness is not only expressed by graphical proper- point to a particular representation, it needs to facilitate an
ties but also by spatial proximity. The mere placement of understanding of the networks topology, the structure of
homologous nodes closer to each other suggests inherent the group as a whole, but not necessarily of its constituent
relationships not solely manifested by edges (links). parts. In most cases, the use of color (within nodes or edges)
and relevant positioning (grouping) is enough to provide
Law of common fate (motion) meaningful insight into the networks broad organization.
The law of common fate proclaims that elements that move
simultaneously in the same direction and at the same speed
fig. 17
The three critical views of network
visualization
Ch a p t e r 3 92
Adaptive zooming
This widely used modern cartographic techniquestrongly
tied with the notion of progressive disclosureenables the
system to render a different set of visual elements depend-
ing on the present zooming view. An interactive web map,
for example, typically starts with regional view; as you
zoom in, more detailed elements progressively appear: pri-
mary roads, secondary roads, road names, and points of
interest. A similar method could be employed in the depic-
tion of networks, by focusing on a gradation from macro
view to micro view, showing the most prominent nodes first,
and then slowly disclosing additional graphical and textual
elements: major hubs and primary links, labels, secondary
nodes and links, tertiary nodes, and so on. fig. 18
fig. 18
Bing Maps, Adaptive Zooming, 2010
fig. 19
Christophe Tricot, EyeTree, 2006
fig. 20
Moritz Stefaner, Organic Link Network,
2006
segregate them. This is usually achieved by enlarging the based on well-founded design principles and appropriate
detailed viewthe users focus of attentionwhile leaving interactive methods.
the other nodes and edges to the periphery. fig. 20 The eight principles exposed in this chapter are not
meant to be restrictive but generative. They are meant to
inspire and influence current practitioners and to be the
On the Principles basis for further study and exploration, superseding many
The main premise of the previous list of principles of the fields limitations. There is still a great amount of work
is that networks are very difficult to visualize, but we do to be done in network visualization, but we can collectively
not need to make them more complex in the process of try- improve it, step by step, node by node.
ing. Graphs are, as of today, the most suitable method for
the depiction of networks due to their intrinsic organization Notes
1 Biggs and Wilson, Graph Theory 17361936, 3.
based on nodes and links, but they are far from perfect.
2 Ibid., 34.
Many of the current limitationssuch as resolution and 3 Ibid., 4.
screen sizecan quickly lead to cluttered and indecipher- 4 Barabsi, Linked, 12.
5 Marineau, Jacob Levy Moreno 18891974, 31.
able displays. This drawback, paired with a long-existing 6 New York Times, Emotions Mapped by New Geography.
eral usability of network visualization to improve, we need 23 Ware, Information Visualization, 317.
24 Mazza, Introduction to Information Visualization, 106.
to embrace the existing body of knowledge from graphic
design, cartography, and visual perception, including
notions of color theory, composition, typography, layout,
and spatial arrangement. The aim is not to merely create an
algorithm capable of sustaining copious amounts of nodes
and links, but also to select the most appropriate scheme
96
04 Infinite
Interconnectedness
When ever ything is connected to ever ything else, for better or
worse, ever ything matters.
Bruce Mau
Over recent years network visualization has shed light common graphexpressed by an arrangement of nodes
on an incredible array of subject areas, and by doing and linksthe range of depicted subjects is astonishing.
so has drawn the attention back onto itself. Driven by People, companies, websites, emails, IP addresses, routers,
a surge in computing power and storage, increasingly species, genes, proteins, neurons, scientific papers, books,
open and accessible data sets, a large adoption by or wordsbonded by a multiplicity of linesexpressing
mainstream media and online-social-network services, anything from social ties to bibliographic citations, com-
and most importantly, our never-ending eagerness for munication flows to hyperlinks. Never before have we felt
measurement and quantification, visualization is cur- so strongly the sense of living in a highly interrelated and
rently at a tipping point. This drastic growth symbol- interdependent world. The following examples showcase
izes a new age of exploration, with the charting of the network as the ubiquitous model in the new age of infi-
innumerous undiscovered territories. While the vast nite interconnectedness.
majority of network visualizations are illustrated by the
Blogosphere
Blogging presents one of the most interesting social
phenomena of our time. This change in the flow of online
information is radically changing the way we look at news
providers and large media conglomerates. It also provides
a remarkable laboratory to investigate how information
spreads across online social communities. Most visualiza-
tion projects under this theme map different aspects of the
blogosphere, from charting the link exchange between polit-
ical blogs to the dynamic blogspace of an entire country.
Ludovico Magnocavallo
Italian Blogosphere
2006
Matthew Hurst
The Hyperbolic Blogosphere
2007
(top) (bottom)
Makoto Uchida and Susumu Antonin Rohmer
Shirayama PoliticoSphere.net
Japanese Blogosphere 2009
2006
A map of the 2008 U.S. political orientationprogressive, independent,
This large survey of the Japanese from complex networks, Journal of blogosphere, showcasing the links and conservativeand the smallest
blogosphere highlights the herd Visualization 10, no. 3 (August 2007): between the 292 influential sites and group represents mass-media websites.
behavior of blogs. Each community 25356. opinion hubs that contributed to the
(depicted by a different color) online debate about the presidential
represents a group of blogs that discuss race. The graph shows four communities
the same or similar topics. From Uchida depicted by different node colors.
and Shirayama, Formation of patterns Three are based on their political
(top)
Linkfluence
Segoland
2007
(left)
Lada Adamic and Natalie
Glance
The 2004 U.S. Election and Political
Blogosphere
2005
Citations
Bibliographic citation is a common practice in aca-
demic publications and an important measure of popularity
and credibility among scholarly circles. It also makes for
an accurate means to ascertain relationships of similarity
between subjects. If two works are cited by a third, a con-
nection can be inferred between the first two, even if they
do not cite each other. This approach can be administered
to a large body of books and research papers, creating
vast matrices of association and highlighting proximity
across domains.
Jean-Daniel Fekete
LRI Co-authorship Network
2007
Del.icio.us
Founded in 2003, Del.icio.us was a pioneer social-
bookmarking system and one of the precursors of folkson-
omy. Like many subsequent bookmarking systems, Del.icio.us
makes the recording of new information extremely easy.
However, as the collection of bookmarks grows over time,
it is easy to get lost in the pile of tags. Many visualization
authors have tried to come up with alternative ways of visu-
alizing their personal tagging systems, either to improve the
retrieval process or simply to unearth their own indexing
behaviors. Del.icio.us ultimately embodies an extraordinary
epistemological laboratory where one can draw interesting
insights on how humans collectively classify information.
Inan Olcer
Delicious Tag Cloud
2006
Aaron Siegel
Research Chronology 2
2006
A chronological visualization of an
individuals bookmarking activity on
Del.icio.us. It maps research activity
along a time line, tying bookmarks
together with colored tag lines. Each
line represents a tag, which changes
from yellow to red, depending on the
number of bookmarks using that tag.
Ch a p t e r 4 108
Ian Timourian
del.icio.us.discover
2006
Flink Labs
Delicious Circle
2009
A visualization of an individuals
Del.icio.us tags and the connections that
emerge between them
Ch a p t e r 4 110
Donations
An extraordinary outcome of the growing number
of freely accessible data has been the outbreak of pub-
lic visualization projects scrutinizing various business and
political practices. Many of these initiatives convey the flow
of private and public donations to political candidates but
also explore lesser-known associations, such as the funding
of political and environmental organizations by gas and oil
companies.
A map of all donations made between amounts donated. On either side of the
January 2007 and July 2008 to John inner semicircles, the top fan represents
McCain (in red) and Barack Obama any donation between $1 and $100;
(in blue). The area of the two inner the middle narrow fan, $101$500; the
semicircles represents the total amount bottom fan, $501$1,000; and finally,
of donations for the candidates, and all amounts over $1,000 are depicted
the outer segments, fanning from by two lightweight fans on the very
the center, illustrate variations in the bottom of the semicircles.
112
Marco Borgna
We Show the Money
2007
Jute Networks
PublicMaps
2008
Email
Email is one of the most important communication
channels in modern society. It is estimated that two million
emails are sent every second across the world, and for
many of us this number translates into copious amounts of
messages that we send and receive every single day. In
order to better understand the habits and social behav-
ioral patterns of our in-boxes, many authors depict these
rich containers in various ways, usually by looking at the
complex social structures created within email lists of com-
panies, schools, and institutions, with the Enron email data
set being a popular example.
Matthias Dittrich
5 Years Designerlist
2008
Josh Knowles
ITP Student List Conversations
2007
Kitware Inc.
Enron Communication Graph
2008
Marcos Weskamp
Social Circles
2003
Internet
The internet is an intriguing domain for many peo-
ple. With its vast network of servers and routers, linked by
copper wires and fiber-optic cables, this hidden landscape
that spans the globe represents a noteworthy target in the
new age of technological discovery. As with many newly
exposed territories, its visual depiction is the very first step
in awareness and understanding of its inherent structure.
The question of what the internet looks like has compelled
many authors to create striking visualizations of different
facets of the system.
Chris Harrison
Internet Map
2007
Barrett Lyon
Opte Project
2003
J. I. Alvarez-Hamelin, M. Beir,
L. DallAsta, A. Barrat, and A.
Vespignani
Internet Autonomous Systems
2007
Lumeta Corporation
Internet Map
2010
Stephen Coast
IP Mapping
2001
Literature
Any text presents an intricate mesh of relationships
between its many lines of words. From mapping the occur-
rence of particular sentences and words in a single book
to cross-citations of particular topics, or even ties between
books, literature is a growing subject matter for network
visualization. Many visualization initiatives analyze large
quantities of text in order to expose relevant insights within
the narrative structure and the authors style, or hidden
associations between discussed subjects.
Top right: A map of the chapter and sentences (represented as small first, second, and third editions of The
structure of the 1866 fourth edition wedge-shaped leaflets at the very end Origin of Species. Bottom row, from left
of Charles Darwins The Origin of of the branches). The color of each to right: The chapter structures of the
Species (1859). In the inner tree, sentence indicates whether the sentence fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of The
each splitting of the branch into survived to the fifth edition (green) or Origin of Species.
progressively smaller sections parallels whether it was deleted from the third
the organization of the content from edition (orange). Center row, from left
chapters to subchapters, paragraphs, to right: The chapter structures of the
Infinite Interconne cte dnes s 123
W. Bradford Paley
TextArc: Alice in Wonderland
2009
A map of word frequency and its position in the book, just inside the
associations in Lewis Carrolls Alice in ellipse next to the sentence in which
Wonderland (1865). TextArc is a text- it appears. Words that appear near
analysis tool that shows the distribution one another in the book share a similar
of words in texts that have no metadata color and are brighter if they appear
descriptions, such as a table of contents more frequently. The selection of any
or an index. It first draws the entire text, word (e.g., Alice) sprouts lines that
sentence by sentence, in the shape of immediately show the distribution of its
an ellipse. Every word is then drawn at usage (where it appears in the book).
Ch a p t e r 4 124
Infinite Interconne cte dnes s 125
Dan Collier
Typographic Links
2007
A hand-sewn, three-dimensional
hyperlink structure that guides the
reader through the pages of a book
(above); detail (right)
Ch a p t e r 4 128
Music
One of the most interesting and recent themes for
network visualization is music. Either by creating a visual
metaphor for the notes of a song or by mapping similarities
and differences between artists across extensive data sets,
music is an enthralling emergent topic. A significant object
of study in this context has been the popular music website
Last.fm. Apart from the familiar social features, Last.fms
application programming interface (API) has been used
by many visualization authors to better understand music
affinities, personal playing habits, and overall community
structure.
Lee Byron
Listening History
2007
Peter Crnokrak
Love Will Tear Us Apart Again
2007
Onyro
TuneGlue
2006
Mariona Ortiz
Indie in the 1990s
2009
News
Mass media is a central player in contemporary
information-packed society. Having to reinvent themselves
in order to adapt to a new digital landscape, many media
channels are now incorporating alternative methods of
dealing with the hefty amounts of daily news. Most projects
in this category are either novel visualization approaches
presented by the media source itself or original concepts by
individual authors pursuing a better grasp of the underlying
relationships within the provided data sets.
Francesco Franchi
Biologia della Pagina (Newspaper
map)
2005
Jer Thorp
NYTimes: 365/360
2009
Dave Bowker
One Week of the Guardian
2008
Stefan Brautigam
Overnewsed but uninformed
2008
Proteins
Protein interaction networks have been one of the
most popular subjects for network visualization and the
chosen area of study for many biologists over the past
decade. Interactions between proteins are crucial in almost
every biological function and of fundamental importance
for all processes in a living cell. The secrets behind many
diseases reside within these intricate structures, and visu-
alization has been an important tool for discovery and
insight. The extracted knowledge from this exploratory pro-
cess can prove essential in future therapeutic approaches.
Yose Widjaja
The Interactorium
2009
A three-dimensional representation of
the yeast interactome (all molecular
interactions in cells) using Interactorium,
a visualization platform that analyzes
large interactome data sets. Developed
in collaboration between Yose Widjaja
and the School of Computer Science
and Engineering at the University of
New South Wales (above). Detail (left).
Infinite Interconne cte dnes s 139
Terrorism
Characterized by idiosyncratic social structures and
a loose hierarchy, terrorist cells are a challenging system to
decipher. The unraveling of these decentralized organiza-
tions is an important pursuit for governments and military
agencies across the world as well as for inquisitive citizens.
Network visualization provides an important analytical
tool by highlighting the ties between groups and individu-
als while also singling out prominent and influential people
within the organizations.
A three-dimensional graph of
associations between frequently
searched words in a large
counterterrorism database
Heath Bunting
A Map of Terrorism
2008
A visualization of suspected
connections between terrorists involved
in the September 11 attacks
Screenshots of an interactive
application that provides a graphical
breakdown of the Al Qaeda network
part of an open-source database
Infinite Interconne cte dnes s 145
Trajectories
Empowered by a wide range of cheap and acces-
sible GPS and video-tracking devices, numerous authors
are mapping an assortment of trails, paths, and movements
within the physical environment, creating a dense lattice
of individual networks. Social cartography is an emergent
practice visible in multiple initiatives, from large collabora-
tive projects like OpenStreetMap.org to smaller individual
approaches aiming at exploring different facets of our own
personal trajectories.
Jeremy Wood
Fly for Art (GPS Drawing)
2009
A map of the GPS coordinates and gradation indicating the average of the University of Coimbra and the
the speed of 1,534 taxis circulating in speed. Cool hues (green and blue) CityMotion Project at MIT Portugal.
Lisbon, Portugal, during a single day in represent rapid transit arteries, while the
October 2009. White dots symbolize sluggish ones are depicted by warmer
circulating vehicles. Each trail produced ones (red and orange). Pure green
by the vehicles constitutes a temporary represents average speeds of 37 mph
route, with the thickness standing for (60 km/h). A collaboration between
traffic intensity and a specific color the Centre for Informatics and Systems
Ch a p t e r 4 148
Stamen
Cabspotting
2006
A visualization of the emotion levels GPS traces in Oxford, England The path generated by Jeremy Wood
of people walking on the Greenwich while mowing the lawn during different
Peninsula, London, calculated from seasons throughout one year. From left
GSR (Galvanic Skin Response) and to right: spring, summer, autumn, and
GPS data. GSR is a simple indicator winter.
of emotional arousal. The height of the
mesh is a measure of the GSR level.
Ch a p t e r 4 150
Twitter
Twitter is one of the most popular microblogging
social services, through which millions of people around the
world communicate, using text messages of up to 140 char-
acters, famously known as tweets. Twitters underlying struc-
ture provides a great laboratory to investigate the behavioral
traits of social groups and is an outstanding trend-analysis
tool in tracking the fluctuations of public opinion in real time.
In the context of network visualization, most authors try to
disclose a range of relationships between Twitter users and
the vast number of messages they regularly post.
Jer Thorp
Just Landed
2009
Augusto Becciu
TweetWheel
2008
Burak Arikan
Growth of a Twitter Graph
2008
Kris Temmerman
Twitter Friends Browser
2008
A screenshot of an interactive
application that allows anyone
to explore their immediate Twitter
followers as well as the followers own
followers
Daniel McLaren
Mentionmap
2009
Wikipedia
With three million published articles by August
2009, in its English version alone, Wikipedia is the largest
encyclopedia ever created in the history of humankind. This
dense body of knowledge, connected by millions of hyper-
links, has been an intriguing subject for many who have felt
compelled to uncover its intricate patterns. This fascination
is in part due to Wikipedias evolving nature and how it
continues to redefine knowledge territories within its com-
plex rhizomatic structure.
Dennis Lorson
Pathway
2006
Chris Harrison
ClusterBall
2007
A chart of interconnections in
subcategories of the Wikipedia
Medicine category page
Chris Harrison
WikiViz
2006
05 The Syntax of a
New Language
Graphic representation constitutes one of the basic sign-systems con-
ceived by the human mind for the purposes of storing, understanding,
and communicating essential information. As a language for the eye,
Looking at the range of network depictions produced in color, text, imagery, size, shape, contrast, transparency, posi-
the last fifteen years, one cannot help but marvel at the tion, orientation, layout, and configuration. Despite this rich
diversity of topics and subjects being explored. But almost graphical diversity, many projects tend to follow noticeable
as staggering as the assortment of portrayed subjects trends and common principles, which in turn result in a type
is the variety of employed visual techniques. Frequently of emergent taxonomy. This embryonic and evolving taxon-
generated by computer algorithms and enhanced by omy provides a portrait of the current state of the practice
interactive features, most projects showcase a broad and reveals the initial building blocks shaping a new visual
palette of visual elements and variations that consider language.
Arc Diagram
(top) (bottom)
Martin Wattenberg Martin Wattenberg
The Shape of Song The Shape of Song
2001 2001
Chris Harrison
Visualizing the Bible
2007
Martin Dittus
Chart Arcs
2006
(opposite)
Felix Heinen
Data Visualisation of a Social Network
2007
Ian Timourian
del.icio.us.discover
2006
Martin Dittus
IRC Arcs
2006
Area Grouping
An example of a visualization
technique that generates an interactive
representation of large and complex
networks in two or three dimensions by
representing clusters of nodes as single
objects
The Syntax of a N ew Language 165
Linkfluence
Diseasome
2009
Jeffrey Heer
Automated community analysis
2004
A community-analysis visualization,
which clusters individuals in groups
bounded by different colors. It is
generated using Vizster, an interactive
visualization tool for the exploration
of the community structure of social-
networking services, such as Friendster,
Tribe.net, and Orkut.
Ch a p t e r 5 166
Ernesto Mislej
Cocovas
2006
Eytan Adar
GUESS
2005
Marco Quaggiotto
Knowledge Cartography
2008
Centralized Burst
Peter Uetz
Protein-Protein Interaction Modeling
2003
Centralized Ring
Ai Zaidi
motirotis Priceless
2006
Moritz Stefaner
CIA World Factbook Visualization
2004
A dynamic visualization of an
individuals Del.icio.us tag (in the
center) surrounded by related tags,
based on bookmarking behavior
Ch a p t e r 5 174
Marcos Weskamp
Social Circles
2003
Jute Networks
PublicMaps
2008
Circled Globe
Bestiario
City Distances
2008
A visualization part of a video A visualization showing the internet Computer Graphics and Applications
demonstration showcasing the traffic between fifty countries over a 16, no. 2 (March 1996): 6972.
production and consumption of two-hour period, as measured by the
breakfast cereal around the globe. National Science Foundation Network
It also acts as an general analogy (NSFNET) backbone in 1993. The color
for real-world supply-and-demand and thickness of the lines correspond
scenarios. to the time and intensity of the traffic,
respectively. From Stephen G. Eick.
Aspects of Network Visualization,
Ch a p t e r 5 178
An interactive visualization of
geostationary GPS satellites
(right)
Advanced Analytic
FreeFall
2006
Circular Ties
Marian Bantjes
Community
2005
Pascal Chirol
Hyperonyme
2007
Eduardo Sciammarella
Fidgt Visualizer
2007
Patrick Vuarnoz
Studyscape
2005
Elliptical Implosion
3, page 123.)
The Syntax of a N ew Language 185
(above)
Greg Judelman and Maria
Lantin
flowerGarden
2005
Flow Chart
(top) (right)
Density Design: Bergamini Doantam Phan, Ling Xiao, Ron
Andrea, Bertola Guido, Yeh, Pat Hanrahan, and Terry
Discacciati Pietro, Mangiaracina Winograd
Francesca, and Merenda Flow Map Layout
Stefania 2005
The Italian Wine System
2006 A pioneering computer-generated flow
maptraditionally drawn by hand
A part of a larger map on the that shows the movement of objects
distribution of Italian wines, from from one location to another (e.g., the
production to consumption, both number of people in a migration, the
domestically and abroad amount of traded goods, or energy
exchanged)
Ch a p t e r 5 192
Organic Rhizome
Robert King
Locus
2004
Sandra Niedersberg
London Connections
2000
Philippe Vandenbroeck, Jo
Goossens, and Marshall
Clemens
Obesity System Influence Diagram
2007
Radial Convergence
Martin Krzywinski
Circos
2005
A visualization of chromosomal
relationships within one genome
Ch a p t e r 5 198
Danny Holten
Hierarchical Edge Bundles
2006
Baris Gumustas
Eurovision 2009 Results
2009
Andreas Koberle
Processing Flickr Group
2007
Radial Implosion
Richard Rogers
Climate Change: U.S. Groups in
International Context
2004
A network of associations between stream ties together journals. Circles Thesaurus, a controlled vocabulary of
scientific journals that includes nearly represent individual journals; labels art, architecture, and material-culture
one billion user interactions recorded have been assigned to local clusters of terms. From J. Bollen, H. Van de
between 2007 and 2008 in scholarly journals that correspond to particular Sompel, A. Hagberg, L. Bettencourt, R.
web portals of significant publishers, scientific disciplines. The colors Chute, et al., Clickstream Data Yields
aggregators, and institutional consortia. correspond to the journal-classification High-Resolution Maps of Science. PLoS
As users select journals, their click system of the Art & Architecture ONE 4(3): e4803.
Ch a p t e r 5 202
Alvarez-Hamelin, Beir,
DallAsta, Barrat, and
Vespignani
Internet Autonomous Systems
2007.
FAS.research
Collaboration Structure of Cultural
Projects
2005
Ramifications
yWorks (opposite)
yFiles Visualization Stefanie Posavec
2005 Writing Without Words
2008
A visualization of abstract nodes
created through a Java library of layout A chart of the structure of part one of Posavec for the book (e.g., travel, work
algorithms for graphs, charts, and Jack Kerouacs On the Road (1957). and survival, sketches of regional life).
diagrams Each splitting of the branch into
progressively smaller sections parallels
the organization of the content from
chapters to paragraphs, sentences, and
words. Each color relates to one of
eleven thematic categories created by
The Syntax of a N ew Language 205
Ch a p t e r 5 206
Marcel Salath
Websites as Graphs
2006
Michael Schmuhl
graphopt
2003
Scaling Circles
A conceptual illustration in a
monograph on the work of the Center
for Mathematical Modeling (CMM)
at the University of Chile engineering
school
The Syntax of a N ew Language 209
Frederic Vavrille
LivePlasma
2005
Boris Muller
Poetry on the Road
2006
A visualization of various poems The diameter of the circle is based on occasionally highlighting repetitive
featured on a poster for an international the length of the poem: short poems patterns in the poem.
literature festival in Bremen, Germany. are in the center, while the longer ones
A number was assigned to every letter form the outer circles. Red rings on the
of the alphabet and added together circular path represent a number, and
to determine the numerical value of its thickness is directly proportional to
a word, e.g., the word poetry would the amount of words that share that
equal 99. Using this system, entire number. Gray lines connect the words
poems were arranged on circular paths. of the poem in their original sequence,
The Syntax of a N ew Language 213
Trina Brady
I Wish ...
2007
Sebastian Heycke
DOLBY
2005
Axel Cleeremans
Interactive Activation
2004
Sphere
Bestiario
Videosphere
2008
A three-dimensional network
visualization exploring semantic
overlaps between video-recorded talks
at the Technology Entertainment and
Design (TED) conference.
Ch a p t e r 5 218
CAIDA
Walrus
2001
James Spahr
Website Traffic Map
2003
Santiago Ortiz
SpheresSpherical Surface of
Dialogue (English)
2005
06 Complex Beaut y
Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is ever y where and
the circumference nowhere.
Blaise Pascal
Complex networks are not just omnipresent, they are And the most elaborate of schemes are the ones that
also intriguing, stimulating, and extremely alluring apparently seduce us at the deepest level. So what are
structures. Networks are not just at the center of a sci- the enthralling properties of complexity? Why do we feel
entific revolution; they are also contributing to a con- so innately drawn to these structures? To try and answer
siderable shift in our conception of society, culture, these questions, we will investigate the various trajectories
and art, expressing a new sense of beauty. As we con- of complexity, alternating between a scientific and artistic
tinuously strive to decipher many of their inner work- viewpoint, before culminating in a contemporary artistic
ings, we are constantly bewildered by their displays expression that truly embodies a redefined notion of com-
of convolution, multiplicity, and interconnectedness. plex beauty.
identifiable pattern: from recognizing a zebra in a grass- relies on the satisfying reward of identifying a figure or
land, to distinguishing a face in the crowd. form in a particular portrayal. The brains propensity to
But Gestaltism had a much wider influence outside look for familiar shapes is so strong that we even tend
the walls of perceptual psychology. Its theoretical base fos- to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise, a type
tered a larger shift in science and in society at large, under of behavior usually called patternicity. Philosopher Karl
the name of holism. While reductionism asserts that any sys- Popper suggests that people are born with a certain innate
tem can be explained by reducing it down to its most fun- proclivity for regularity, an inborn propensity to look out
damental elements, holism expresses the opposite, believing for regularities, or with a need to find regularities.4
that the whole is ultimately irreducible. Even though this gen- So what happens if that sense of order is unstable
eral principle can be traced back to Aristotle, it became a and regularity imperceptible? When complexity exceeds
fundamental school of thought in twentieth-century science. a sustainable level? Does our perceptual system become
It helped to explain newly discovered natural systems, in clogged, preventing us from appreciating the specific tar-
which the whole was consistently made of interconnected get of our attention? Architect and lecturer Richard Padovan
and interdependent parts, and where no one unit of a system elaborates on this delicate balance, by paraphrasing art
could be altered without modifying the whole. historian Ernst Gombrich: Delight lies somewhere between
Gestalt theory is still today an immensely valuable boredom and confusion. If monotony makes it difficult to
resource in disciplines dealing with objective visual com- attend, a surfeit of novelty will overload the system and
munication, such as graphic design, interface design, and cause us to give up; we are not tempted to analyze the
information design. The Gestalt principles of form percep- crazy pavement.5 If this is really the case, how can we
tion, developed by Gestaltists over the years, constitute explain our attraction to particularly convoluted nonfigu-
great recipes for how to better employ visual elements while rative subjects? Ultimately, how can we explain the allur-
also pointing to their ability to easily fool the cognitive sys- ing qualities of complexity? Well, to shed new light on this
tem. However, when it comes to complex nonfigurative rep- topic, we need to resort to a different type of analysis.
resentations, Gestalt falls short in two key aspects. First, it is
always prescriptive and never explanatory: it may describe
that we are able to see a dog in a particular arrange- Complexit y Encoding
ment of dots, but it does not explain how the percept of a When talking about intricate depictions of complex
dog emerges in our mind. Second, Gestalt addresses the networks, there is a recurrent association with one particu-
form-forming capability of our senses, the way we visually lar art movement: abstract expressionism. As one of its main
identify familiar figures and whole forms. So what happens figures, Jackson Pollock was the key perpetrator of a sub-
when we are unable to identify a pattern? genre of abstract expressionism called action painting, or
Humans have a remarkable aptitude for pattern rec- gestural abstraction, which describes the act of dribbling,
ognition, and some might argue that the idea of aesthetics leaking, or splashing paint onto the canvas. His intricate
Ch a p t e r 6 224
and dynamic drip paintings have attracted many enthusiasts In his innovative analysis of Pollocks convoluted
over the years and have decisively defied the mold of most patterns and trajectories generated by his drip paintings,
traditional views on art and artistic execution. fig. 1 Taylor goes much further and suggests the evidence of
Pollocks drip paintings evoke large-scale views several fractal properties. Fractals are recurrent patterns
into undisclosed networked systems, where singularity is found in nature that express self-similarityany reduced
lost in the dense forest of interconnections. These intricate part of the entity is the same in proportion to the whole
landscapes express a variety of dynamic patterns and like never-ending repetitions of identical geometrical motifs.
organic textures that resemble those found in natural sys- According to Taylor, Pollocks fractality appears in two
tems. fig. 2 The similarity is certainly not accidental. My visual modes: fractal scaling and fractal displacement.
concern is with the rhythms of nature....I work inside out, While the former relates to a pattern that employs the same
like nature, Pollock declared. 6
But it is in Pollocks pro- repetitious motifs at different scales or magnifications, the
cess that we find the closest affinities with nature, explains latter refers to the use of the same motifs at different spatial
Richard Taylor, a physicist who has investigated many of locations.
Pollocks pieces. In the paper Fractal Expressionism The inherent fractal features of Pollocks paintings
Where Art Meets Science (2003), Taylor describes the might in part explain the captivating qualities of his work.
interesting overlap between nature and Pollocks paintings Nature builds its patterns using fractals as its basic build-
and provides five key traits of Pollocks method that reveal ing block, notes Taylor. Having evolved surrounded by
a unique instinctive character: (1) Cumulative layering: this fractal scenery, it perhaps is not surprising that humanity
similar to the way leaves fall over time or erosion patterns possesses an affinity with these fractals and an implicit rec-
are created, Pollocks paintings are made of a succes- ognition of their qualities. Indeed, it is possible to speculate
sion of strata; (2) Variation in intensity: just as weather that people possess some sort of fractal encoding within
changes over time, assuming a bright blue sky or a dark the perception system of their minds.8 fig. 3, fig. 4, fig. 5
intense storm, so do Pollocks patterns, both in color and Are we in the possession of some type of percep-
energy; (3) Horizontal plane: Pollocks canvas was the tual fractal encoding? And could the same encoding be
terrainhis dripping technique exploited gravity in the extended to other natural patterns? If this holds true, it could
same way nature builds patterns; (4) The large canvas: this well explain why we are so allured by depictions of com-
was seen by Pollock as an environment, which by ignor- plex networks. After all, it has been proven that networks
ing the canvas edges resembles Natures expansive and are a ubiquitous topology in nature, and a type of encod-
unconfined patterns; (5) Ongoing process: the cyclical ing similar to fractal encoding might exist in our minds. The
routine of nature is illustrated by Pollocks habit of leav- fact that as you read this sentence you are using your own
ing a painting resting for a long time and occasionally vastly interconnected network of neurons alludes to this
revisiting ithe was a great enthusiast of the continuous plausible cognitive complexity encoding. Perhaps we have
dynamic method. 7
a propensity for structures similar to our own brainat its
fig. 3
Carden and Coast, London GPS
Tracking Map
fig. 1
Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm:
Number 30, 1950, oil on canvas.
fig. 2
Graciela Blaum, Oaks, 2007,
photograph
fig. 4 fig. 5
Richard P. Taylor, Pollocks Traces, Paul De Koninck Laboratory,
2006 Dissociated culture of rat hippocampal
neurons, 2005
A schematic version of Jackson Pollocks
poured trajectories A detailed view into a rats neuronal
network. (See also page 230, figure
13.)
Ch a p t e r 6 226
most basic cellular levelturning us into victims of a dop- a variety of animals, from insects like bees and termites, to
aminelike neurotransmitter every time we view systems that birds (flocking), fish (schooling), and even people (crowds).
roughly resemble a neural network. fig. 6, fig. 7 figs. 89
Most of these queries and assertions are specula- The highly synchronized movement of large groups
tive by nature, and at this stage there is hardly a more reli- of animals, sometimes forming perfectly aligned patterns
able framework that can explain this appeal. As a matter as in the case of bird flockingis an intriguing occurrence,
of course, the outcomes of ongoing efforts may clarify this particularly since it subverts our assumptions that some type
elusiveness. Aesthetic judgment has always been seen as of hierarchy or centralized control is taking place. It turns
an unempirical domain, but many researchers are striving out that the highly complex performance is not based on
to quantify and understand it. Whereas the growing field any chain of command, but on very simple local rules, fol-
of computational aesthetics facilitates the analysis of aes- lowed by every animal in the group. Most swarm behaviors
thetic perception by means of computer-driven automated follow three basic directives: separationdont crowd your
tools, the emergent subfield of empirical aesthetics, known neighbors (short-range repulsion); alignmentmaneuver in
as neuroesthetics, recognizes aesthetic perceptions at the the average direction neighbors are moving toward; cohe-
neurological level. Even if significant discoveries arise from sionsteer toward average position of neighbors (long-
these innovative approaches, it is apparent that many of the range attraction). This set of directives forms, in essence,
obstacles preventing a new understanding of aesthetics are a very simple recipe, manifested in various natural systems
not related to technological or scientific limitations but to a and able to create gripping complexity out of simplicity.
widespread resistance to alternative concepts of beauty. Our knowledge of swarming has grown consider-
ably in the last two decades, in part due to our ability to
replicate collective animal behavior in various computer
Ordered Complexit y simulations, initially developed by computer graphics
In Regularities and Randomness: Evolving Schemata expert Craig Reynolds in 1986. Reynoldss work was an
in Science and the Arts (2003), American physicist and important contribution to the field of computation evolution,
Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann notes that computer which encompasses a series of computational techniques
scientist, psychologist, and economist Herbert Simon stud- and algorithms based on evolutionary processes of biologi-
ied the path made by ants, which may appear complex at cal life, but it also became a popular subject of interest for
first, but when we realize that the ant is following a rather generative art.
simple program, into which are fed the incidental features Emerging in the 1960s, generative art refers to
of the landscape and the pheromone trails laid down by art created or constructed by means of computer algo-
the other ants for the transport of food, we understand that rithms, usually employing randomized autonomous pro-
the path is fundamentally not very complex. A parallel 9
cesses. Arguably the most suitable art practice to illustrate
phenomenon, known as swarm behavior, is observable in the intricate and cumulative building of natural patterns,
Complex B e aut y 227
fig. 6 fig. 7
Jackson Pollock, Number 5, 1948, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de
oil, enamel, and aluminum paint on Lausanne, Blue Brain Project, 2008
fiberboard
A computer-generated model produced single neocortical columnarguably the
with IBMs Blue Gene supercomputer most complex part of a mammals brain.
shows the thirty million connections The different colors indicate distinctive
between ten thousand neurons in a levels of electrical activity. (See also
chapter 2, page 53.)
figs. 89
Robert Hodgin, Birds, 2007
fig. 10
Marius Watz, Abstract 1, 2003
figs. 1112
Keith Peters, Random Lissajous Webs,
2008
Complex B e aut y 229
generative art has gained momentum in the past decade, scientists began to view nature differently, understanding
with the works of artists Marius Watz, Alessandro Capozzo, that even though natural systems masqueraded as being
Jared Tarbell, Keith Peters, Eno Henze, Casey Reas, Paul disordered, lurking underneath was a remarkably subtle
Prudence, Robert Hodgin, and Karsten Schmidt, among form of order.11
others, delivering riveting views on the artistic qualities of The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the growth of two
code. fig. 10, fig. 11, fig. 12 groundbreaking areas of scientific inquiry, fractal and chaos
Generative art is fascinating, not only for its medium theories, which in turn led to the development of the notion
and end result, but also for its inherent building process, of emergence. While fractal theory looks at recursive self-
akin to the creation processes of nature. The associations similarity as a building mechanism for complexity, whereby
with biology and evolution are indubitable, with many the same geometrical motif is continuously repeated at dif-
artists employing behavioral algorithms, in which coded ferent scales, chaos theory, famously typified by the but-
agents, or virtual ants, are told to move across the terfly effect, is a wide field of study that investigates the
screen in a series of randomized directions, progressively properties of complex dynamic systems sensitive to initial
generating the elaborate final piece as they leave behind small changes, and covers areas like mathematics, phys-
their colorful trails. If Pollocks affinity to natural processes ics, and economics. Both theories led to the awareness of
helps explain the magnetism of his work, so too does gen- emergencethe rise of complex patterns and systems from
erative arts nature-inspired assembly procedure explain its multiple simple interactionswhich delivered a new under-
own magnetism. After all, the way generative art operates standing of natural phenomena and became an integral
at a code levelas simple orders repeated over timeis part of complexity science.
remarkably similar to the way nature builds many of its These theories look at dynamic systems from an
convoluted patterns. entirely new perspective, in which order and complexity
But the notion of such an ordered nature is in fact are not seen as opposing but as complementary elements
quite recent. Before the 1950s, as Taylor observes in his of nature. The extraordinary work of mathematicians Alan
book Chaos, Fractals, Nature (2006), science showed lit- Turing, Edward Lorenz, and Benot Mandelbrot, which
tle interest for the visual complexity that abounded in the translated natures apparent disorder into simple math-
natural environment, with the common presumption that it ematical equations, was pivotal in this transition. Soon it
was no match for humanitys artificial order: Although the became widely accepted that the newly conceived ordered
individual actions of Nature were expected to be trivially complexity of natural systems relied on basic rules, coming
simple, it was assumed that the sheer number and variety together in a variety of intricate shapes and schemas.
of these actions caused the combined system (the one we In many cases it is not so much a matter of order
observe all around us) to descend into disorder. In other and disorder being antagonistic as it is a matter of each
words, complexity was thought to exclude any hope of prevailing at a different scale. What seems complex in
order. 10
But around the time of Pollocks death, in 1956, one representation may seem ordered or disordered in a
Ch a p t e r 6 230
representation at a different scale, say media artists and view that prevailed for centuries. Many other philosophers
researchers Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau. 12
have supported and expanded on this belief. But in the
To elucidate this point, they provide the example of cracks beginning of the twentieth century, the notion of pure, bal-
in dried mud, which might seem like a flat, homogeneous anced beauty was assertively challenged by vocal artists
surface from afar, but a disordered array when the clay who suggested a new type of aesthetics independent of a
particles making the mud is looked at closely. An inverse striving for balance. Cubism and futurism helped foster this
of this duality might be said to exist in the case of fractals change of mind-set, gearing art toward the path of abstrac-
or networks, whether biological, social, or technological. tion. Most people familiar with art history know what hap-
They might seem astoundingly complex from afar, but as pened next: art became gradually detached from its role
we zoom in, we find a very defined order between indi- as a faithful representation of the real and became looser
vidual entities and their respective ties. When we alternate and nonliteral, often placing emphasis on the process, the
between micro and macro views of the world, we can deci- emotional impact, and experimentation.
pher different attributes of order and complexity, as if look- Even though art went through a major transformation
ing at a flexible universal continuum. fig. 13, fig. 14 in this period, the refusal to fully acknowledge complexity
As the idea of an ordered complexity in nature was carried out by a number of art critics, who later found
through advances in chaos, fractal, and network theory in Pollock the perfect target for their repudiation. In 1957,
became accepted in the sciences, the art community likewise art theorist and perceptual psychologist Rudolf Arnheim
began to question this duality. In his seminal Metaphysics (19042007) took a stand against the latest accidental
(ca. first century CE), Aristotle considered order, symmetry, form of art in a harsh condemnation of contemporary art.
and definiteness to be the general elements of beauty, a Published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, his
fig. 13 fig. 14
Paul De Koninck Laboratory, Volker Springel et al., Millennium
Dissociated culture of rat hippocampal Simulation, 2005
neurons, 2005
The largest and most realistic simulation
A detailed view of a rats neuronal of the formation and growth of
network galaxies and quasars. It re-created the
evolutionary histories of approximately
twenty million galaxies in twenty-five
terabytes of stored data.
Complex B e aut y 231
essay Accident and the Necessity of Art delivered a livid By analyzing Pollocks work in this fashion,
attack on modern artists, particularly Pollock, who deliber- Greenberg became a voice of change, finally pairing order
ately [rely] on accident for the production of their work. 13
and complexity in a new type of orderly disorder aesthet-
As one of the key precursors of Gestaltism, it was ics. This important shift, similar to the one observed in the
only natural for Arnheim to be derisive of a new form of sciences, still reverberates throughout the arts. As Padovan
expression lacking any obvious sign of uniformity. After explains, Order and complexity are twin poles of the same
all, Gestaltists believed psychological organization was phenomenon. Neither can exist without the other, and aes-
facilitated by regularity, predictability, and symmetry, and thetic value is the measure of both.... Just as order needs
if anything, order and complexity were antagonists in a complexity to become manifest, complexity needs order to
struggle for constancy. Slowly, other critics started realizing become intelligible.15 According to philosophy professor
that the aesthetic split between order and complexity was Ruth Lorand, this interlace leads to the formula of beauty
not clear cut, and the dismissal of Pollocks work began to described as unity in diversity.16
fade. The influential art critic Clement Greenberg, one of We can witness this aesthetic formula in a variety
the first voices of appraisal for Pollock, opposed the super- of daily circumstances, simply by looking at a stirring natu-
ficial idea of accident popularized by Arnheim. In the ral landscape. It is the apparent sense of unity despite the
article Inspiration, Vision, Intuitive Decision, from 1967, uncountable interacting variables and inherent complexity
Greenberg writes: that makes us gaze in awe when contemplating such a
landscape and wonder with amazement how all these ele-
Pollock wrests aesthetic order from the look of ments came to form such a striking construct. Truly, the same
accidentbut only from the look of it ....True, sense of wonder occurs when we are faced with a complex
this is all hard to discern at first. The seeming network. The dense layering of lines and interconnections
haphazardness of Pollocks execution, with its might enthrall us at a deeper level, leaving us to marvel
mazy trickling, dribbling, whipping, blotching, at the feeling of wholeness from disparate multiplicity. If
and staining of paint, appears to threaten to a sense of self-awareness, driven by an innate complexity
swallow up and extinguish every element of encoding, can partly explain our infatuation with networks
order. But this is more a matter of connotation and complexity, the notion of unity in diversity can certainly
than of actual effect. The strength of the art complement it. Unity in diversity is ultimately an important
itself lies in the tension... between the con- metaphor for a new outlook on the captivating power of
notations of haphazardness and the felt and networks, granting complexity greater aesthetic legitimacy
actual aesthetic order, to which every detail than ever before.
of execution contributes. Order supervenes at
the last moment, as it were, but all the more
triumphantly because of that.14
Ch a p t e r 6 232
fig. 15
Firstborn and Digital Kitchen, detail
from Operation Smile. A large-scale
visualization of hundreds of smiling
portraits of visitors to New York Citys
South Street Seaport. (See also chapter
5, page 202.)
fig. 16
Emma McNally, detail from Field 4,
2009, graphite on paper
Ch a p t e r 6 234
fig. 19
Sharon Molloy, Transient Structures and
Unstable Networks
Complex B e aut y 235
In addition to Molloy, other central players of net- took part, writer Catherine Walworth opens with the fol-
workism are artists Janice Caswell and Emma McNally. lowing: Maps are gorgeous but notable artists are rarely
Although the three artists seem to be allured by the most invited to render them. They wouldnt make sense in a lan-
appealing features of network formationswith imaginary guage of pure subjectivity... or would they?20 She then
landscapes of interconnected entities being the prevail- describes Caswells exhibited works in detail:
ing themetheir motivations are never exactly the same.
While Molloy seems to be captivated by scientific discov- Unconstrained lines drawn in marker travel
eries and underlying structures in nature, Caswell pursues back and forth across the page creating airy,
portraits of her own memories as indecipherable mental curving forms with no specific mass....Caswells
maps. McNally, on the other hand, is highly influenced by markings pause as they stroll along, conveying
the concept of the rhizome from Deleuze and Guatarri, and the slightly awkward sense that they have no
her work investigates possibilities of semiotic connections intended direction. Dots of various sizes are
and disconnections through a visually and conceptually affixed to these lines like the symbol for towns
dense use of pencil on paper. 19
and cities on a common road map.21
In an article for Art Liesa contemporary art quar-
terlycovering the exhibition City Maps in which Caswell Caswells maps of intertwined lines and colorful pins
are captivating, taking us through imaginary journeys and
wanderings. The network is an ever-present topology, linking
different nodes, tying different places together, in a glimpse
of faded memory. Caswell has also developed a personal
lexiconwhich she recurrently explores in her mapsremi-
niscent of computer-generated network representations: This
work arises out of a desire to capture experience, an impulse
to locate, arrange, and secure the past. I use a pared-down,
coded language through which points, lines, and fields of
color define spaces and retell narratives, making memories
concrete.22 fig. 21
McNally, whose drawings showcase remarkable
landscapes of intense graphite, depicting imaginary net-
works, paths, and trajectories, explores a parallel carto-
graphic conjecture. In an essay accompanying McNallys
work at T1+2 Gallery, in London, curator and art historian
Ana Balona de Oliveira describes McNallys studies: Her
fig. 20
Sharon Molloy, Transient Structure,
2010, oil and enamel on canvas
Ch a p t e r 6 236
large and small-scale drawings ...offer themselves to the Nodal building. The key influence of networkism,
viewer as surfaces or sites for rhythmic relations of graph- as the name implies, is networkswidespread topologies
ite marks disruptively connected in gatherings, collisions, usually represented by means of a graph. It is the specific
swirls, and dispersals that are both geometric and chaotic. nonlinear network configurationdefined in sets of nodes
There seems to be a permanent flux of disquietingly pulsing and edgesthat situates networkism in a different artistic
energy achieved through these conflicting highly organized context, separate from other past and contemporary art
and extremely fleeting forces. 23
Oliveira explains that movements, particularly action painting and other branches
McNallys nodal connections show a similarity between of abstract expressionism.
the processes of the radically differing micro-cosmos of the Even though the strongest manifestation of networkism
atom and macro-cosmos of the star formation and bear is occurring in painting and illustration, it is not limited to
a resemblance to a variety of themes, like aerial views, expression in two dimensions. The work of Tomas Saraceno,
battlefield maps, geological formations, oceanic charts, particularly a piece with the fabulous title Galaxies Forming
disease transmissions, animal migratory routes, molecule Along Filaments, Like Droplets Along the Strands of A Spiders
structures, black holes, etc. 24
fig. 22, fig. 23 Web (2008), shown at the Venice Art Biennale in 2009, is a
The work of Molloy, Caswell, and McNally has magnificent example of what networkism is all about. In this
a strong correspondence to the work produced in action dramatic installation, several bulbous shapes hang in the air,
painting, generative art, and even network visualization. sustained by a dense interwoven elastic rope that stretches
So what makes networkism distinct as an independent artis- to the floor, walls, and ceiling. It plays with the notion of
tic movement? Although analogous in terms of visual out- celestial space and the vast planetary landscape, like invis-
put, networkism is unique in a number of ways. ible strands holding groups of stars in candid emptiness; but
No tangible data. In most cases the depicted enti- it also alludes to smaller-scale entities, resembling at times
ties on canvas and their expressed linkages are fictitious the construct of a neuronal network. The piece is striking
and do not relate to an existing data set. This first feature and theatrical, and allows users to wander freely between
of networkism puts aside apparent similarities with infor- the multitudes of elastic strands. Art editor Kristin M. Jones
mation design or network visualizationfields that always describes her own experience with Saracenos web in Frieze
employ actual data sets or tangible facts. Magazine: Bumping into one [rope] meant sending shiv-
Not entirely random. Although dealing with abstract ers throughout the skeletal cosmological web, but clumsiness
elements and respective ties, their placement on the can- worked to the viewers advantage, providing this surrogate
vas seems to be carefully considered and planned, with a universe with a sense of tangible interconnectedness and
particular visual composition in mind. This differs from most mutability.25 figs. 2427
generative art and other forms of algorithmic art, which, If Saracenos Galaxies Forming Along Filaments
besides distinct computerized media, tend to employ ran- appears to sustain the surrounding white walls in a slen-
domized, autonomous processes in their work. der assemblage, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiotas lattices
Complex B e aut y 237
fig. 21
Janice Caswell, The Book of Salt,
2006, ink, paper, pins, enamel, beads
on paper, mounted on aluminum-
backed archival foam board
fig. 22
Emma McNally, e1, 2009, graphite
on paper
fig. 23
Emma McNally, field 8, 2010, graphite
on paper
Complex B e aut y 238
figs. 2427
Tomas Saraceno, Galaxies Forming
Along Filaments, Like Droplets Along
the Strands of A Spiders Web, 2008,
elastic ropes
Complex B e aut y 239
emphatically invade every corner of the room, in a gloomy Bosnian artist Dalibor Nikolic has also been explor-
swarm of dark lines. fig. 28 Her spaces are filled with hun- ing the meanderings of the network, but instead of using
dreds of black woolen threadsdense layers that form elastic bands or woolen threads, Nikolic uses plastic pipes
an impenetrable cocoonand appear to be contaminated and wires to produce many of his convoluted shapes in a
by the intrusive web. Shiota does not have a studio, nor remarkable effort of systematization. figs. 2930 His con-
does she produce drawings or notes beforehand. She structions are made by the continuous replication of basic
works only on location and relies solely on recollection. patterns, always with a simple, or the simplest possible,
This explains why her captivating installations resemble assembly process. Accepting the premise that everything
dreamy scenarios, invoking the passage of time or the ero- is made up of atoms, Nikolic finds great inspiration in the
sion of memory. repetition of uncomplicated patterns, as a universal mode
fig. 28
Chiharu Shiota, In Silence, 2008,
elastic ropes and black woolen thread
Ch a p t e r 6 240
figs. 2930
Dalibor Nikolic, Network, 2007
fig. 31
Gertrud Goldschmidt (Gego), Esfera
(Sphere), 1976, stainless-steel wire
Complex B e aut y 241
of production, and the duality of absoluteness and noth- Theresa Papanikolas draw a comparison between Gegos
ingness. In one of his pieces, appropriately titled Network Reticulrea and Deleuze and Guattaris rhizome:
(2007), Nikolic builds a dense globe of interconnections of
intersecting pipes and assembled joints, resembling visions As in the rhizome, two principles rule instead
of a noosphere, the sphere of human thought. of a master plan: a principle of connection
A visionary precursor to the works of Saraceno, and a principle of heterogeneity.... By con-
Shiota, and Nikolic comes from the hands of the notori- necting any one point with any other, the
ous artist Gertrude Goldschmidt, known as Gego. A true Reticulrea, like all rhizomes, makes multiple
predecessor of networkism, Gego was born and raised in without adding a superior dimension; it nei-
Germany. In 1939, at the age of twenty-seven, she moved ther begins nor ends, but is instead always in
to Venezuela and lived there the rest of her life, until passing the middle, in the midst of things, and there-
away in 1994. Her artistic vocabulary was unique and con- fore always lacking a culminating point.27
stantly changing. In her drawings, prints, and sculptures,
she showcased an unconventional and independent view- The rhizome, discussed in chapter two, is not only
point, apparently immune to trends or styles. fig. 31 a strong metaphor for Gegos work but for all artists within
Gegos Reticulrea is the most popular and striking the sphere of networkism. Rhizome showcases an entirely
piece in her diverse body of work. figs. 3233 First exhib- new conception of aesthetic qualityopposed to our obses-
ited at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas in 1969, sion for order, tidiness, and linear narrativethat relies
several meshes of aluminum and steel were tied together on multiplicity and interconnectedness to express the inner
and dispersed irregularly in the confined space of a room. construct of the world and its striking invisible beauty. The
In a June 2003 article for Art in America, critic and cura- net has no center, no orbits, no certainty, writes technol-
tor Robert Storr described Reticulrea as an astonishing ogy editor and writer Kevin Kelly. It is an indefinite web
tessellation of suspended, interlocking stainless-steel wire of causes.28 If complexity science is networkisms scientific
elements that fills a large white room whose corners have mentor, then rhizome is its philosophical counterpart.
been rounded so that viewers can more easily lose them- Networkism typifies a new conception of art, stretch-
selves and their sense of scale in the triangulated, volumet- ing as far as our scientific eye can take us and embracing
ric webs that surround them, webs through which they move all scales of human understanding, from atoms, genes, and
like planes navigating the gaps in a cloud bank.26 neurons to ecosystems, the planet, and the universe. A seem-
The web of influence between Gego, Saraceno, ing consequence of the complex connectedness of modern
Shiota, and Nikolic is evident not only in the similarity life, networkism follows a revised idea of metanarrative, or
of their resulting structures but also in the ingrained prin- grand narrative, introduced by French philosopher Jean-
ciples that tie their work. In Questioning the Line: Gego Franois Lyotard in the 1970s, in this case pertaining to
in Context (2003), curators Mari Carmen Ramrez and the omniscience of science. The network is at the center of
Ch a p t e r 6 242
figs. 3233
Gertrud Goldschmidt (Gego),
Reticulrea (Reticula + area), 1969.
Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas,
Venezuela.
Complex B e aut y 243
able perceptual shift, replacing many of complexitys dubi- 16 Lorand, Aesthetic Order, 10.
17 Casti and Karlqvist, Art and Complexity, 25.
ous qualities with new, evocative ones. Networks show us 18 Molloy, Sharon Molloy: Artist Statement.
that there is order in disorder, that there is unity in diversity, 19 Oliveira, Emma McNally.
20 Walworth, City Maps.
and above all, that complexity is astonishingly beautiful. 21 Ibid.
22 Caswell, Artist Statement.
23 Oliveira, Emma McNally.
24 Ibid.
25 Jones, Tomas Saraceno.
26 Storr, Gegos Galaxies, 10813.
27 Ramrez and Papanikolas, Questioning the Line, 93.
28 Kelly, New Rules for the New Economy, 9.
29 Ibid.
244
07 Looking Ahead
Today we live invested with an electric information environment
that is quite as imperceptible to us as water is to a fish.
Marshall McLuhan
This quantit y over qualit y shift in our culture has created an even
deeper need for truly informing experiencesfor insight, the most
precious form of information.
Nathan Shedroff
Information gently but relentlessly drizzles down on the various political, economic, cultural, sociological, and
us in an invisible, impalpable electric rain. This is
1
technological advances shaping the coming years.
how physicist Hans Christian von Baeyer starts his In the spirit of network diversity and multiplicity, this
engaging book Information: The New Language of chapter will embrace a number of different views on the future
Science (2005). The statement is not only an intriguing of visualization, covering an array of trends and technologies
metaphor for our contemporary data-inundated world that will shape the progress of the field. Some of these direc-
but an acute look into the future. If visualization has tions have just begun to show the first signs, while others have
until now played a major role as a substantiated filter been maturing for years. The essays cover topics ranging
of relevance, disclosing imperceptible patterns and from ubiquitous visualization to social-data collection, neo-
hidden connections in von Baeyers electric rain, it will cartography, ambient visualization, collective intelligence,
simply become indispensable as raindrops swiftly turn mass digitization, and sensory networks. Through these dis-
into a drenching downpour. Visualization will become cussions, their authors forecast an engaging and malleable
imperative not solely as a response to the growing use of visualization as a fundamental tool of discovery in an
surge of data, but also as a supporting mechanism to increasingly interconnected and complex world.
In the early 1900s, an anthropologist, a poet, and a film- levels, which in turn could help others find the best route
maker started a project in the United Kingdom called home or to work in real time. Citizens can collect pollution
Mass-Observation, in which the goal was to gain a better levels in their area, which could collectively provide a view
understanding of their community. They asked participants of a citys air quality and provide a clear direction for pub-
to keep diaries documenting their daily lives. Sometimes lic policy. Less serious matters can also be measured, like
participants were given specific objectives, like count how helping people find a fun place to hang out.
many people in a pub wore hats. Other times, the sub- It is easy to see the potential in such an idea; how-
ject of documentation was open-ended with very little to ever, we are still very much at the beginning of social-data
no structure. The collective result was a micro view of the collection, or Participatory Sensing. Before we hit any mile-
United Kingdom, made possible by thousands of individu- stones and really make use of these new flows of data,
als working toward a common goal. These journals were there are three main areas that we have to work on: collec-
meaningful to the individuals who kept them but also pro- tion, analysis, and interaction.
vided something useful as a collection. This, of course, was
before computers.
Current technological developments offer the oppor- Data Collection
tunity to collect data in the same vein as Mass-Observation, With the huge growth and adoption of mobile tech-
at an even more detailed, and a much larger, scale. We nology, data collection is easier than ever. We can record
can use advancing technology, like mobile phones and our location every few seconds with GPS devices, take digi-
the internet, to collect information about our surroundings tal pictures on a whim, and send text messages wherever
and ourselves. An individual can collect thousands of data there is connectivity, which is just about everywhere nowa-
points during a single day without even batting an eye or days. Some data flows are self-updating and automatic.
picking up a pencil and a notepad. Hundreds of thousands Others are manual and involve more active collection pro-
of people are a part of this fast-paced digital world. cedures. Either way, one of the keys to data collection is
With these advances come a number of possible to make the process easy and to intertwine it with daily
applications. One area is citizen science. People can take activities.
active roles in their community by collecting data about Millions of people around the world own mobile
what is around them, contributing to a common database phones and subscribe to services so that they are con-
that experts can in turn analyze to find solutions to local nected almost everywhere they go. These phones could be
problems. For example, individuals could report traffic repurposed into data-collection devices with software that
Lo oking Ahe ad 247
tasks the phone to retrieve data a few times per minute so help locate the useful points in the data, which are then
that people can collect data almost everywhere they go. visualized.
Programs could be created to allow users to take pictures For example, imagine a camera phone programmed
and annotate them with location and metadata. to take pictures several times a minute, perhaps with the
It is, of course, not as easy as it sounds. Like with intent of examining whom we interact with or the foods that
any experiment, there are many kinks to resolve before we eat during a single day. Without proper algorithms to
moving on to the next step. Connectivity, for example, will distill the data, the hundreds of thousands of images are
inevitably be spotty in some areas. How do we account for difficult to process. Our brains are great at finding patterns,
a loss of connection? How should we store the data? We but when we have gigabytes or terabytes of information,
can cache data on a phones memory, but what happens it is easy to see how important details could be missed.
when it runs out of space? Along with connectivity and stor- Not only does analysis help find the interesting points in
age come synchronization issues with phone and server. our data, but it also filters out the outliers and corrupted
Then there are concerns with data privacy. Who files, and automates tedious tasks like classification and
sees your data when you upload it to the server? How safe correlation.
is your data and how long will it stay in memory? If the data
is used for research, is the data properly anonymized?
For example, some might not mind sharing what they eat, Interaction
but most people are not comfortable revealing their loca- Once the information is in the database and
tion every single minute of the day. properly vetted, we can finally see our world in data
Ultimately, these are issues to address while retain- through visualization. With the growing amount of data,
ing transparency for the user. When the user, who is not nec- many toolssome artistic, some analytical, and others in
essarily professionally trained to deal with data, becomes betweenhave been applied to provide unique views of
analyst, it is important he or she knows what is going on. our surroundings. And the web has made it much easier for
these ideas to propagate.
Dynamic online mapping, or so-called neocartogra-
Analysis phy, has brought intuitive interfaces in a familiar geographic
Once there are streams of data to work with, we setting to all users to access specific information about their
have to figure out what to do with it. There is an inclination county or city. What if you were able to see what was
to show all the data at once, which may be appropriate at going on in your neighborhood from a data standpoint?
times, but what happens when there is too much data to fit Is your block due for a road repair because there are too
on a single screen? In these cases, which continue to grow many potholes? Which street lamps are flickering on and off
in number, analysis occurs between data collection and the at night? Are the noise levels too high in the middle of the
end use. Algorithms and traditional statistical techniques night? People can easily access this information, which not
Ch a p t e r 7 248
just satisfies curiosity but also provides quantitative evidence how we can use that information for the better. Computers
that can be used in public-council meetings or provided are often thought of as technology that takes us away from
to policy makers. Participants can also collect and aggre- the physical world and social interactions. Quite the oppo-
gate information about their neighborhoods themselves. So site. Computers, through data, visualization, and interfaces,
while people interact with the data through a computer, can bring us closerand that is certainly something to look
they are actually able to improve their communities. forward to.
Although not everyone who analyzes this data
will have a background in the proper techniques, a certain
level of data literacy must be developed. Visualization will
be essential in making the data more accessible.
Released back in 2002, the Ambient Orb is a cute light- been developed, although most have not appeared outside
emitting globe able to change its external color depending of the bubble of academia. For instance, in 2000 research-
on various data, such as the forecasted temperature, current ers in Sweden proposed the concept of informative art, an
stock-market performance, or sports statistics. It is a perfect attempt to introduce dynamic data visualizations in public
example of an ambient display, a new approach to visualiza- space by exploiting the social acceptance of art paintings.3
tion that combines two intrinsically contradicting goals: to con- An electronic version of a Mondrian-style painting slowly
stantly inform viewers about useful, time-varying information changed its visual composition according to the worlds
and to do so without disturbing them. Or, in academic terms, weather conditions or the real-time locations of public-
ambient visualization communicates information through the transportation buses. Passersby would initially be puzzled,
periphery of user attention so that one can remain commit- often unaware that the wall-mounted Mondrian replica was
ted to other, more important, tasks at hand. The significant
1
a slow-changing computer art work, even when informed
contradiction lies in the fact that our visual sense tends to be citizens revealed that the painting actually portrayed mean-
so sensitive that the slightest perceivable change within our ingful information.
visual range will inevitably obstruct any concurrent activity.
But why is there a need for a display of data, when one does
not want to be disturbed by it anyway? The Downfall
The idea of ambient visualization is thought to The wish to present information without being noticed
have been conceived by a group of researchers at the MIT demonstrates the contradicting requirements of ambient
Media Lab, who investigated the idea to discover a way visualization, a discipline that surfaced when information
to convey information by means beyond the traditional visualization was introduced to the field of ubiquitous com-
computer screen. They proposed the dynamic alteration of
2
puting (ubicomp), which investigates how computing tech-
environmental qualities according to changes in data, such nology can disappear into the fabric of everyday life.4 The
as slight changes in sound or subtle adaptations of light, issues facing ambient visualization are manifold, including
so that people would be continuously provided with infor- a widespread belief that people do not appreciate textual
mation like live traffic conditions, trends in airline prices to interfaces. For instance, displaying the forecasted outside
favorite holiday destinations, or the online status of friends temperature in an ambient way is often more difficult to
and family. Many examples of ambient visualization have comprehend than simply reading a numerical value: while
Ch a p t e r 7 250
the relatively small difference between 20 and 23 degrees goes beyond the triviality of representing environmental
Celsius could lead to a fashion adjustment, it might just conditions through changes too subtle to be really noticed
be a slight, almost indistinguishable color hue shift on the or even comprehended.
Ambient Orb. In addition, the urge for creating visualiza-
tions that have more decorative than informative qualities
has led to the fact that most laypeople cannot understand The Rise
the need to dedicate their money or space for something Slowly but surely, we are moving toward a world
that requires deciphering for it to become functional. There that urgently requires us to become more aware of the envi-
has also been a severe shortage of interesting data sets that ronmental consequences of our actionsperhaps by intro-
go beyond simple weather reports or stock-market quotes ducing some sort of visual feedback that reveals their true
and establish a personal relationship with the user. Who cost or impact. As most of our actions are already electroni-
really cares about the weather when one can simply look cally traced and stored, most of the required data already
outside the window? And are people who really care about exists somewhere in todays huge corporate databases
the real-time performance of their stock-market portfolio not for example, our day-to-day energy usage, water consump-
much better off with more precise tools than noticing an tion, or food-spending habits. However, there is still no
odd twist in the Mondrianesque pattern? convincing interface that reveals the consequences of such
consumer actions, right when such information would be
needed the most. Where are the visceral multimedia experi-
The Current ences that could encourage us to keep up even minor behav-
During the last few years, some of these issues have ioral changes, show our progress in relation to set goals, or
dramatically changed. Data visualization is becoming a benchmark our habits with those of similar people?
communication medium in its own right, able to both inform Ambient visualization research should explore how
and engage people. There is also the emerging trend of such socially relevant data depictions could become inte-
self-surveillance and Participatory Sensing, as people vol- grated within our physical experience, potentially using the
untarily record their personal behaviors for self-analysis or plethora of electronic displays of today for more socially
social-media sharing. (See Nathan Yaus essay Seeing relevant goals. People tend to make more considerate deci-
the World in Data, on pages 24648.) Finally, we have sions when directly confronted with pertinent and trustworthy
become aware of the urgent need to use modern technology information about the consequences of our intended actions.
for persuasive goalsfor instance, information feedback These situated data depictions should be present when and
displays that are specifically designed to change peoples where it really counts, namely, when we make decisions.
behavior, attitude, or opinions. In short, the unique combi-
5
Moreover, the physical location of such data repre-
nation of these three phenomena will enable ambient visu- sentations could contextualize the information beyond high-
alization to rise out of its ashes and forge a purpose that lighting data patterns or trends that lie beyond our own
Lo oking Ahe ad 251
integrate information displays within our everyday experi- 5 Fogg, Persuasive Technology.
Living in our time poses a formidable challenge that will and neurophysiology. Coined from the Greek word kyber-
require the collective intelligence of mankind to reach a new netes, meaning steersman, pilot, governor, cybernetics
dimension of cooperation to harness and apply the vast traces back to Plato, who used the concept in his essay
amount of technological resources we have at our disposal. on self-governance. Cybernetics examines the structure of
If we can learn to overcome the real issues that are pre- regulatory systems, investigating and defining those sys-
venting progress (geopolitical division, economic disparity, tems that have goals and operate within circular causal
and intellectual property domination), we can then begin to loops, and in which action, information input (feedback),
effectively work as a global network to monitor and manage and response all interact, causing the system to adapt and
the state of entropy that mother earth is experiencing. In this change its behavior. It is notable that the military was the
way we can achieve what Norbert Weiner, the founder of first employer of cybernetics, often in ways dangerous to
the term cybernetics, described as resistance: a way to slow humans and our environmentquite different from what we
the planets inevitable systemic decline. expect from the intelligent systems described herein.
Today, more than a half a century after the publica- The early applications, known as first-order cyber-
tion of Weiners groundbreaking book The Human Use of netics, utilized relatively simple applications of cybernetic
Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (1950), in which principles for the control and regulation of mechanical
he describes the general theory of organizational and con- systems. While being very effective in solving problems
trol relationships in systems and the cooperation between of limited complexity, they did not factor in the influence
human and machines, we need to revisit the underlying of the observer in the process. To overcome this problem,
concepts of cybernetics and the ways they have influenced new approaches called second-order cybernetics evolved
the rapidly evolving world of human-computer interface. to incorporate a broader and more complex set of circum-
Successful application of this has the potential to play a stances, representative of a more holistic approach. These
critical role in the efforts to preserve our ecosphere and include the user point of view, the environmental context,
create a more peaceful, equitable world community. and the models and methods being applied. Second-order
Weiner and his colleagues, building on the work of cybernetics has been central to rapid development of a myr-
other pioneers in mathematics and computation, developed iad of scientific and technological fields, including biology,
cybernetics as a new discipline linking the fields of elec- medicine, demography, robotics, semiotics, management,
trical and mechanical engineering, logic theory, biology, artificial intelligence, and a number of important analytical
Lo oking Ahe ad 253
disciplines, such as systems theory, decision theory, and We have just begun to recognize the importance of
information theory. his predictions, with Barack Obama, Al Gore, and other
One of these new applications of cybernetics, emer- world leaders and activists striving frantically to find new
gence theory, is concerned with complex, open systems and solutions to our global dilemmas. Scientific studies from
the way order can be created without central command and many credible sources inform us that our biological sys-
control, made possible by open systems, which have the tem is reaching its tipping point and is in imminent danger
capability of extracting information directly from the envi- of failure. In order to counteract this seemingly inexorable
ronment. This is the basis for the popularized term rhizome, trajectory toward global disorder, we must devise an imagi-
which describes a nonhierarchical system, exemplified by native new cybernetic process to ensure the viability of our
the World Wide Web and its self-generating, exponential life-sustaining environmental systems. A vital component in
growth. (See also chapter 2, page 44.) Another finding developing such a process will be our capacity to plan,
indicates that when a large number of complex actions/ organize, and manage complex systems and entities with
reactions occur simultaneously, it may lead to the creation the capacity to link both organic life and digital networks
of new phenomena and new constructs. Weiner docu- and to allow us to monitor larger patterns of complex sys-
mented the unique ability of information systems, because temic forces at work. Importantly, the resulting systems must
they operate within organizational structures, to perform become self-generating to be sustainable.
negentropically (to resist entropy). If these facts are true, This new cybernetic process will rely on our expo-
then the fusion of information systems and organic life may nential increase in computational power to process and
become part of our solution to arrest global decline. filter the massive data required to provide a real-time
Many eminent scientists, in their later years, incor- documentation of global activity and resulting behavioral
porated new philosophical, historical, and cultural insights patterns. Each element within our collective biosphere will
into their foundational theories. Weiner was one of those need to be carefully tracked, interrelating multiple factors
prescient thinkers, like Albert Einstein and others, who even- such as geologic and climatic conditions, predatory traits,
tually came to understand the critical need for our species to and life cycles. In this complex and multidimensional data
accept a greater sense of responsibility for the stewardship environment, the role of visualization will be key in pro-
of planet Earth and the cosmological system with which we viding the capacity to recognize the emergent patterns
are inextricably linked. In The Human Use of Human Beings, and processes of these phenomena. Visualization will
Weiner compared Earths precarious state to the biological itself become organic, as it will need to adapt to simu-
fact that all organisms reach a peak in their life cycle when late information from a wide spectrum of sources, ranging
their cells stop reproducing. He termed this natural process from micro/organic to macro/planetary states. The role of
resistance and used the idea to reinforce the need for man- artificial intelligence will be critical in creating this new
made systems to develop feedback mechanisms to assist in cybernetic form of resistance, revealing abnormal trends
the control of entropy. and anomalies and giving us the ability to utilize resources
Ch a p t e r 7 254
more effectively and to prevent major catastrophes before advanced technologies and systems offer great benefits to
they occur. mankind, they also present serious obstacles to progress,
A new process I am calling regenerative networks due to our innate human weaknessesfear, hate, greed,
could be the next phase of cybernetics, a real-time living and the lust for power.
system of communication, capable of dealing with highly The threat of imminent disaster to our planet may
complex interactions. In early-stage electronics, a simple well be the catalyst for leaders in government, industry,
one-way/two-way communicationa computer respond- and religion to reach across ancient and contemporary
ing to a querywas considered a breakthrough. But soon boundaries to create innovative new partnerships and net-
we will have the capability to integrate electromechanical works as well as a set of shared ethical and moral prin-
devices with organic structures, permitting us to monitor and ciples to move toward what might be called a state of
regulate the flow of information from multiple data sources collective intelligence. Within the resulting collaborative
and creating a macroscale feedback system designed to framework, diverse cultures, environments, and life forms
evolve gradually and to link more and more networks until could be harnessed together as a technological extension
there is a virtual reproduction of organic states. This new of both natural processes and human consciousness. On
regenerative process would have the capability to monitor an organic level, such a new system would allow unions of
and control both environmental and man-made systems. collective intelligence to form a holistic web that would no
The Smart City program, currently underway in a number longer be constrained by the divisions and boundaries of
of large cities, integrates smart electronics into both build- human creation.
ing systems and urban infrastructure. These are examples In our effort to create this collective intelligence, we
of the potential of the new systems and tools already at will need to work together to find equitable ways of shar-
our command. ing economic opportunities, create new public-private part-
The prognostications of Ray Kurzweil in his book nerships, incorporate new technologies rather than allow
The Age of Spiritual Machines (1999) is a reflection of the protectionist interests of large corporations to inhibit
our efforts to create a productive, sustainable future their use by the public, and move away from our current
one requiring local and global cooperation. Kurzweil is fossil-fuel-based economy toward a new era of bio-organic
confident that by 2020, computers will approximate the and artificial intelligence. The liberators of the future will
memory capacity and computational power of the human be those from diverse industries, fields of knowledge, and
brain. Yet he argues that raw computational power alone cultural backgrounds who seek to facilitate this critically
will not supplant the human ability to foresee events and needed and daunting integration process, to sustain our
chart new courses. We must now employ what he refers planet, and to realize what Weiner called the human use
to as the software of intelligence to construct a global of human beings.
open network, which utilizes the collective capacities of
both man and machine. He notes, however, that while our
255
Who are we? Within this simple question is contained the Western worlds understanding of humanitys relationship
essence of what it means to be human: our capacity to to the heavens. Almost five hundred years later, the Apollo
reflect on our own consciousness. This reflexive impulse 8 Earthrise image recontextualized perceptions of human-
is so central to our character that we call our subspecies itys place in the cosmos for much of the world, with its first
homo sapien sapiens, identifying sapiencethe wisdom to photographic view of Earth from outer space. This image
act with appropriate judgmentas the primary trait that is often attributed with instigating an environmental-para-
distinguishes us from other animals. digm shift, inducing numerous commentaries concerning
Our collective quest to know ourselves begins with the fragility of our home planet and the interconnected-
imagining the world and our place in it. The success of ness of the global community. Designers Charles and Ray
our species is largely attributable to our ability to imagine Eames further pushed the reorienting potential of imagery
and map abstract concepts, which help us to study, commu- to new heights (and depths) with their seminal 1972 short
nicate, and synchronize with our local environments. We film Powers of Ten. It took viewers on an impossible journey
create and imbue imagery with symbolism derived from across many orders of magnitude from quarks to quasars,
interactions with our surroundings, often accompanied by pioneering the dynamic long-zoom camera technique that
stories, artifacts, and practices that give clues to their mean- illustrates how strongly our concepts of reality are shaped
ing. These culturally constructed modes of communication by sensory experiences.
enable us to share our experiences and cultivate knowl- Today our self-reflective search has expanded into
edge across generations, providing important contextual new dimensions. While these earlier examples shifted spa-
understanding that helps us to situate ourselves in the world tial awareness, we are increasingly able to measure and
and the cosmos. represent temporal, spectral, and relational characteristics
The power of imagery to profoundly affect our sense of our environs. A latticework of satellites, telescopes, and
of place has been exquisitely demonstrated by a few key other measuring instruments are perpetually scanning and
examples in the history of science. Nicolaus Copernicuss providing voluminous amounts of data about our surround-
sixteenth-century illustration of a sun-centered solar system ings. Time-lapse and hyperspectral photographs shed new
has been widely credited as the primary factor in the pre- light on atmospheric, biospheric, and cosmic processes.
cipitation of the scientific revolution. In one fell swoop, he GPS and radio-frequency identification devices (RFID) track
redrew the cosmic order and by extension, much of the interactions between people, products, and processes
Ch a p t e r 7 256
around the globe. And with the ever-expanding integra- invisible as externalities with modern economic systems, it
tion of internet-connected gadgets into our daily lives, data is apparent that their healthy functioning can no longer be
about our activities, interests, and movements are gener- taken for granted.
ated across physical, social, and virtual domains. The sensory networks that monitor our home planet
As many of us attempt to make sense of the gestalt have brought to light some alarming trends in recent
of information being generated by and about us, it is little decades. Industrial societies have been consuming resources
surprise that interest in computer visualization is exploding. much faster than the planet can regenerate them, resulting in
Mass digitization yields endless territories to map, while the destabilization of environmental conditions upon which
increased accessibility of graphics software enables wide- human civilizations have been dependent for millennia.
spread experimentation with novel representation tech- Specific planetary boundaries have now been identified as
niques. Geospatial visualizations provide instant access to the safe operating space for humanity, within which we
worldwide atlases of information, now ubiquitously avail- must stay to avoid disastrous consequences. Since 1968
able through GPS, web maps, and digital globes. Scientific (ironically, the same year the Earthrise photograph helped
visualizations are widely used to visually simulate phenom- to birth the environmental movement), we have been slip-
ena at various scales, appearing regularly in news reports, ping further into ecological debt as we rapidly expand
exhibitions, websites, and mobile applications. Information our global footprint and exceed the safe operating space.1
visualizations are used to reveal hidden patterns within As a result, we are facing a convergence of interconnected
interdisciplinary networks of large-scale data collections. environmental crises, including ocean acidification, mass
A new generation of information cartographers has taken species extinction, overfishing, peak oil, peak water, land
up the challenge of exploring the aesthetic possibilities degradation, deforestation, and plastics pollutionnot to
of these databases, and these ongoing investigations are mention climate change.
yielding intriguingand occasionally usefulrenderings Developing appropriate responses to these urgent
to disclose previously imperceptible relationships. issues requires more effective tools for reflexively examin-
Burgeoning interest in these visualizations suggests ing humanitys relationship with global ecological systems.
that they may also prove useful for illuminating the most Derived from the Greek root oikos and logos, ecology
complex and important network of all: Earths biosphere. appropriately means the study of relations and is used to
Composed of all of the ecosystems on the planet, the bio- describe many studies of interactions between organisms
sphere regulates the countless vital interactions that are and their environments. Practitioners in the field of complex
essential for supporting life as we know it. These include network visualization are well positioned to apply their
not only the biological networks that sustain us but also the artistic and technical experiences to focus much-needed
generation of the natural resources that feed consumer attention on these essential interconnections.
societys global production and distribution networks. A number of nascent efforts are already exploring
While most of these ecological processes have been made how aesthetic approaches to visualization and mapping
Lo oking Ahe ad 257
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Contributor
Biographies
David McConville is a media artist and theorist, whose investigations focus on how
visualization environments can transform perspectives on the world. He is cofounder
of The Elumenati, a design and engineering firm with clients ranging from art festivals
to space agencies. He is also on the board of directors of the Buckminster Fuller
Institute, through which he helps to develop Idea Index 1.0, a network of projects
designed to apply ecological principles to human endeavors.
http://elumenati.com
Andrew Vande Moere is a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney and specializes
in the research and teaching of data visualization, interaction design, and media
architecture. He is also the sole author of the blog Information Aesthetics, which col-
lects contemporary examples of the blending of design, art, and visualization.
http://infosthetics.com
Nathan Yau is a PhD candidate in Statistics at UCLA and has a background in com-
puter science and graphic design. He focuses on visualization and making data more
accessible to those without scientific training, which he covers regularly on his blog
FlowingData.
http://nathanyau.com
264
Image Credits
Alex Adai 139, 140; Lada Adamic 101b; Eytan Adar 166b; Christopher Adjei 63c, 66t, 75, 91; 2009 Linkfluence, Gephi, INIST, CNRS 165t; Donald Lombardi
18889; Syed Reza Ali 211b; Jos Ignacio Alvarez-Hamelin 120, 202t; Kunal and Pierogi Gallery 72; Patent Pending & Copyright Lumeta Corporation 2010.
Anand 63b, 106 bl, 106br; Aran Anderson 178b; Bergamini Andrea 191t; Burak All Rights Reserved. 121t; Barrett Lyon 119; Ludovico Magnocavallo 98; Brandon
Arikan 152t; 2010 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn Martin-Anderson 47t; Sean McDonald 113b, 174b; Daniel McLaren 153b; Emma
239; Christopher Paul Baker 115; Michael Balzer 164; Marian Bantjes 181t; Jeff McNally 233c, 237r, 237b; 2010 Microsoft Corporation, NAVTEQ. 93; Ernesto
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ly/9Nvmcn) 225c; Marco Borgna 113t; Dave Bowker 135; Trina Brady 213; Stefan Muckety.com. 185b; 2008 National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 102, 170bl;
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Axel Cleeremans 215b; Stephen Coast 121b, 233bl; Coleccin Fundacin Museos 169; Mariona Ortiz 131; Santiago Ortiz 87 top row, 177t, 196, 217, 219b; W.
Nacionales-Galera de Arte Nacional. Archivo Fundacin Gego. Photo by Paolo Bradford Paley 42, 85tl, 104, 123, 184, 18687; Andrew Pavlo 210b; Daniel Peltz
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3; Maurits de Bruijn 180; Paul De Koninck, Laval University (http://www.greenspine. 225t, 227tl; Mario Porpora 190; Stefanie Posavec 122, 205; Private Collection.
ca) 225br, 230l; Gerhard Dirmoser 181b; Reproduced by permission from Matthias Reproduced with permission from Fundacin Gego. 240b; Marco Quaggiotto 130r,
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218b, 244; Reprinted by permission of the publisher from Francesco Rao and Gonalves, S. Patil, A. Flammini, and F. Menczer, Detecting and tracking the spread
Amedeo Caflisch, The Protein Folding Network, Journal of Molecular Biology 342, of astroturf memes in microblog streams. CoRR eprint arXiv:1011.3768, 2010. http://
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and user Bamse for Wikimedia Commons 89l; Julien Gachadoat. http://www.2roqs. Nikos Salingaros 47b; Tomas Saraceno 238; Michael Schmuhl 207; Felix Schrmann
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198t; J. D. Hooge 209t; Ben Hosken 109; Matthew Hurst 99; 1996 IEEE 177br, 153t; Jer Thorp 134; Jer Thorp 150; Ian Timourian 108t, 162t; Christophe Tricot 94t;
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Australia: CSIRO Publishing, 2003). 70; Jang Sub Lee 220; Manuel Lima 28, 45,
265
Index
city planning, 4648, 57, 254 computers, 1113, 16 de Tournefort, Joseph Pitton, 65
Claffy, K., 179 complex beauty and, 22627, 232, 23536 Deussen, Oliver, 164
clarity, 12, 79, 88, 95 decoding networks and, 73, 75, 79, 83, 86, Dewey, Melvil, 6162
classification 92, 95 Dewey Circles (Ali), 211
accident, 27 future issues and, 24656 Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) method, 62
biblioteconomical, 25 infinite interconnectedness and, 105, 13738 diaphora (difference), 27
Boethius and, 27, 29 new language syntax and, 159, 177, 182, Diderot, Denis, 36, 38, 39
Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) method 191, 207 Diemer, Alwin, 25
and, 62 trees and, 25, 33, 41, 5254, 62, 64 difference, 27
difference, 27 computing power, 52, 97 Digg, 59
folksonomy and, 6264, 106 Conceptual Basis of the Classification of Knowledge digital advertising, 15
genus, 27 (Diemer), 25 Digital Dark Age, 16
gnosiological, 25 Connecting Distant Dots (Lang and Chaves), 194, 257 Digital Information Graphics (Woolman), 159
information and, 25, 27, 3334, 36, 39, connectivity, 92, 118, 12021, 202, 24647. See Digital Kitchen, 202, 233
6169, 106, 247 also infinite interconnectedness Dimes Project, 118
Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system context, 93, 95, 25557 Dioptrics (Descartes), 34
and, 62 continuous dynamic method, 224 Dirmoser, Gerhard, 181
ontological, 25 Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis Diseasome (Linkfluence), 165
ordering nature and, 6469 (CAIDA), 202, 218 Dissertatio de arte combinatoria (Leibniz), 33
property, 27 Copernicus, Nicolaus, 255 Dittrich, Matthias, 114, 130
semantics and, 27, 64, 79, 86, 167, 217, 219 Corum, Jonathan, 198 Dittus, Martin, 16162
species, 27 Counterblast (McLuhan), 245 diversity, 17, 45, 52, 67, 69, 89, 125, 159, 231,
subgroups and, 25 CPAN Explorer (Linkfluence), 60 243, 245
trees and, 25, 27, 3334, 36, 39 Craigslist, 59 Divine Right of Kings, 65
Cleeremans, Axel, 215 Crnokrak, Peter, 129 DOLBY (Heycke), 214
Clemens, Marshall, 194 Crosby, Alfred W., 61 donations, 11013
Climate Change: U.S. Groups in International Context Cruz, Pedro Miguel, 147 Dondis, Donis A., 222
(Rogers), 200 cubism, 230 Dramatis Personae (Enright and Samples), 90
ClusterBall (Harrison), 155 cumulative layering, 224 drip paintings, 22324, 231
CMM Infographic (de Gregorio and Neira), 208 Cybernetics Revisited: Toward a Collective Dunne, Gabriel, 218, 244
Coast, Stephen, 121, 148, 224, 232 Intelligence (Kirwan), 25254 Drer, Albrecht, 24
Cochin, Charles-Nicolas, 39 Cyclopaedia (Chambers), 36, 37, 39 Duval, Erik, 108
Cocovas (Mislej), 166
Collaboration Structure of Cultural Projects (FAS. D E
research), 203 dAlembert, Jean le Rond, 36, 38, 39 e1 (McNally), 237
collective intelligence, 25254 Dali, Salvador, 232 Eames, Charles, 255
Collier, Dan, 127 DallAsta, L., 120, 202 Eames, Ray, 255
color theory, 95 Darwin, Charles, 21, 6567, 122 EarthQuake 3D (Wolton), 179
combinatory logic, 32 Darzentas, N., 68 Earthrise (Apollo 8 photograph), 25556
Commercial and Political Atlas, The (Playfair), 75 data collection, 24647 Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, 227
community analysis, 165 Data.gov, 57 ecology, 25557
Community (Bantjes), 181 Data Visualisation of a Social Network (Heinen), eco-visualization, 257
complex beauty 16263 edges
accident and, 231 da Vinci, Leonardo, 232 adapting, 84
communication and, 222 dead links, 16 expansion and, 81
complexity encoding and, 22326 Death and Life of Great American Cities, The (Jacobs), expressive, 88
continuous dynamic method and, 224 46, 48 law of proximity and, 91
convolution and, 221 de Bruijn, Maurits, 180 macro view and, 91
cumulative layering and, 224 decentralization, 17, 45, 54, 55, 59, 61, 142 networks and, 75, 79, 81, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91,
drip paintings and, 22324 de Gregorio, Juan Pablo, 208 95, 104, 13940, 165, 236
fractals and, 224, 22930 Deleuze, Gilles, 4345, 69, 235, 241 nodal building and, 236
generative art and, 226, 229, 236 Del.icio.us, 62, 63, 1069, 162, 173 Eick, Stephen G., 177
Gestalt psychology and, 22223, 231 Delicious Circle (Flink Labs), 109 eidos (species), 27
holism and, 22223 del.icio.us discover (Timourian), 108, 162 Eigenfactor.org, 103
horizontal plane and, 224 Delicious Tag Cloud (Olcer), 106 Einstein, Albert, 253
interconnectedness and, 221 del.icio.us visualization (Klerkx and Duval), 108 elliptical implosion, 158, 18487
large canvas and, 224 democracy, 57, 243 email, 11417
multiplicity and, 221 Density Design, 19091, 210 Email Map (Baker), 115
nature and, 22122, 224, 22930, 235 De Puy, W. H., 49 emergence, 12, 45, 48, 57, 229, 253
networkism and, 23243 de Savigny, Christophe, 3334 Encyclopdie (Diderot and dAlembert), 36, 38, 39
ongoing process and, 224 Descartes, Ren, 2728, 3334, 36 encylopedism, 33
ordered complexity and, 22631 design Enright, Andrew Coulter, 90
pattern recognition and, 223 aesthetics and, 13 (see also aesthetics) Enron, 114, 214
swarm behavior and, 226 information, 11 Enron Communication Graph (Kitware, Inc.), 117
variation in intensity and, 224 interaction, 11 entropy, 25253
Complexicity (Lee), 220 layout, 12, 17, 46, 59, 82, 95, 140, 159 epistemology, 25, 36, 67, 106
complexity encoding, 22226 Parsons School of Design and, 15 Escher, M. C., 232
complexity science, 1113, 17, 45, 219, 229, 232, 241 principles for network visualization and, 8195 Escherichia coli, 196
composition, 95, 159, 222, 236, 249 space and, 13 Esfera (Gego), 240
Computational Genomics Group, 67 Design Research Nature (Density Design), 210 essentialism, 44, 6465
Computer Graphics and Applications (Eick), 177 despotism, 44 Etymologiae (Saint Isidore of Seville), 33
detail, 93 Euler, Leonhard, 7475
Index 267
European Academic Network (Ortega and Aguillo), 169 geneaology, 25, 26 Henze, Eno, 229
European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), 6769 generative art, 226, 229, 236 Hessels, Scott, 218, 244
European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), 56 Genesis, Bible Book of, 23 Heycke, Sebastian, 214
Eurosphere (Rohmer), 58 genetics, 18, 25, 27 Heyworth, Peter L., 31
Eurovision 2009 Results (Gumustas), 199 Genomic Network (Snel, Bork, and Huynen), 170 Hick, William Edmund, 92
evolutionary trees, 6569 genus, 27, 65 Hicks Law, 92
Evolution of The Origin of Species, The (Posavec and Geographia (Ptolemy), 79 Hierarchical Edge Bundles (Holten), 198
McInerny), 122 geometric abstraction, 12 hierarchy, 17, 253
Excel, 11 Geometry (Descartes), 34 bottom-up, 36, 62
Exhibition Road Cultural Group, 172 Germanic languages, 27 centralism and, 4344
Exxon-Mobil, 112 Gerstle, Christoph, 175 complex beauty and, 226
Exxon Secrets (On and Balkin), 112 Gestalt psychology, 88, 91, 22223, 231, 256 Industrial Revolution and, 46, 57, 59
Eyes Have It, The: A Task of Data Type Taxonomy for Gevurah (power), 23 infinite interconnectedness and, 140, 142
Information Visualizations (Schneiderman), 92 Girardin, Fabien, 83 networks and, 4446, 57, 58, 59, 6266, 69
Eye-Sys, 177 Glance, Natalie, 101 new language syntax and, 159, 198, 210
EyeTree (Tricot), 94 Global Cereal Supply Chain (Eye-Sys), 177 ordering nature and, 6469
Glynn fractal, 20 rhizomes and, 4345, 69, 158, 192, 235,
F GNOM (Ortiz, Rico, and Valencia), 196 241, 253
Facebook, 16, 162, 248 God, 23, 65 social collaboration and, 5761
Fall and Rise of Ambient Visualization, The (Moere), golden ratio, 232 top-down, 13, 36, 43, 45, 62
24951 Goldovsky, L., 68 trees and, 21, 25, 2728, 36, 41, 4346, 57,
Fall of Man, The (Drer), 24 Goldschmidt, Gertrude (Gego), 240, 241 58, 59, 6266, 69
Familiar Feelings (Moloko), 130 Google Charts, 11 Hindus, 23, 125
FAS.research, 203 Goossens, Jo, 194 Historia Animalium (Aristotle), 65
Fekete, Jean-Daniel, 105 Gore, Al, 253 Hlynsky, Dennis, 195
Fidgt Visualizer (Sciammarella), 182 Govindan, Ramesh, 170 Hodgin, Robert, 226, 227, 229
Field 4 (McNally), 233 GPS, 14649, 178, 224, 246, 25556 Hod (glory), 23
Field 8 (McNally), 237 Graffieti, Michele, 133 Hoffman, Eric, 179
finalism, 44 Graphic Methods for Presenting Facts (Brinton), 81 Hokhmah (wisdom), 23
Finding Patterns in Corporate Chatter (Marsh), 214 Graphic Statistics in Management (Smith), 48, 58 holism, 22223
Firstborn, 202, 233 graphopt (Schmuhl), 207 Holland-Cunz, Nils, 18889
First Notebook on Transmutation of Species (Darwin), 66 graphs, 11, 206 Holmes, Tiffany, 257
5 Years Designerlist (Dittrich), 114 aesthetics of, 12 Holten, Danny, 198
Flickr, 62, 83, 182, 199 algorithms for, 204 Holy Spirit, 30, 31
Flink Labs, 109 infinite planes and, 166 Homan, Christopher, 210
flow chart, 158, 18891 limitations of, 95 Hooke, Robert, 65
flowerGarden (Judelman and Lantin), 185 line thickness and, 81 horizontal gene transfer (HGT), 69
Flow Map Layout (Phan, Xiao, Yeh, Hanrahan, and mathematical drawing of, 79 horizontal plane, 224
Winograd), 191 suitability of, 95 Hosoya Schaefer Architects, 178
Fly for Art (GPS Drawing) (Wood), 146 visualizing large, 218 Hudson Powell, 21617
FMS Advanced Systems Group, 14445 graph theory, 41, 7475, 79 Human Genome Project, 52
focus, 93, 95 Graph Theory (Biggs, Lloyd, and Wilson), 74 Human Use of Human Beings, The: Cybernetics and
folklore, 2223 Great Chain of Being, 65, 67 Society (Weiner), 25254
folksonomy, 6264, 106 Greenberg, Clement, 231 Hurst, Matthew, 99
Forest in Folklore and Mythology, The (Porteous), 22 Greenfield, Susan, 52 Huynen, Martijn A., 170
Four Seasons (Vivaldi), 160 Greenpeace, 112 Hyperbolic Blogosphere, The (Hurst), 99
Fowler, James, 171 Gregorio, Juan Pablo de. See de Gregorio, Juan Pablo hyperlinks, 44, 97, 127, 154, 169
Fractal Tree (Beddard), 20 grouping, 25, 88, 91, 158, 16467 Hyperonyme (Chirol), 182
Fractal Expressionism-Where Art Meets Science Growth of a Twitter Graph (Arikan), 152 hypertext, 56
(Taylor), 224 Grubbs, Wesley, 11112, 215
fractals, 20, 57, 224, 22930 GSR (Galvanic Skin Response), 149 I
fragmentation, 46 Guattari, Flix, 4345, 69, 235, 241 IBM, 52, 53
Francesca, Mangiaracina, 191 GUESS (Adar), 166 idion (property), 27
Franchi, Francesaco, 132 Guido, Bertola, 191 IEEE InfoVis, 215
Francis Bacon (Bacon), 21 Guido, Daniele, 133, 210 INCOME, 214
FreeFall (Advanced Analytic), 178 Gumustas, Baris, 199 Indie in the 1990s (Ortiz), 130
French Enlightenment, 36, 39 Industrial Revolution, 46, 57, 59
Freud, Sigmund, 75 H infinite interconnectedness
Friedman, Thomas L., 61 Haeckel, Ernst, 26, 68 blogosphere and, 15, 17, 58, 98101
Friendster, 96, 165 Hagberg, A., 201 citations and, 1025
Frieze Magazine, 236 Hageneder, Fred, 23, 27 Del.icio.us and, 1069
Fry, Ben, 82 Halai, Sameer, 168 donations and, 11013
futurism, 230 Hamilton, William Rowan, 75 email and, 11417
Han, Jeff, 85 explosive growth of, 97
G Hanrahan, Pat, 191 Facebook and, 16, 162, 248
Galaxies Forming Along Filaments, Like Droplets Along the Harrison, Chris, 118, 15557, 161 Flickr and, 62, 83, 182, 199
Strands of A Spiders Web (Saraceno), 236, 238 Hauer, Marcus, 211 GPS and, 14649, 178, 224, 246, 25556
Gall, Franz Joseph, 48 Heer, Jeffrey, 96, 144, 165 internet and, 11821
Garden of Eden, 23, 24 Heeswijk, Jeanne van. See van Heeswijk, Jeanne literature and, 12227
Gell-Mann, Murray, 226 Heidegger, Martin, 2728 music and, 12831
Genealogy: On the Iconography and Rhetorics of an Heinen, Felix, 16263 news and, 13237
Epistemological Topos (Seigel), 67 Henry II, 26 proteins and, 13841
Index 268
terrorism and, 14245 Iraq, 23 layout, 12, 17, 46, 59, 82, 95, 140, 159
trajectories and, 14649 IRC Arcs (Dittus), 162 Lecointre, Guillaume, 44
Twitter and, 83, 15053, 248 Isagoge (Poryphyry), 27 Lee, Jan Sub, 220
Wikipedia and, 15458 Italian Blogosphere (Magnocavallo), 98 Le Guyader, Herv, 44
information Italian Wine System, The (Density Design), 191 Lehrer, Jonah, 52
algorithms and, 13, 16, 64, 79, 95, 159, 204, ITP Student List Conversations (Knowles), 116 Leibniz, Gottfried, 2728, 33, 67
226, 229, 236, 247 I Wish . . . (Brady), 213 Leibsohn, Adam, 130
ambient, 24951 Leiden University Library (Woudanus), 63
analysis and, 247 J Leifer, Loring, 245
biological, 13841 Jacobs, Jane, 46, 48 Liber figuram (Book of figures) (Joachim of Fiore),
blogosphere and, 1517, 58, 98101 James, Edwin Oliver, 2223 2831
centralism and, 4344 Japanese Blogosphere (Uchida and Shirayama), 100 Library of Congress Classification (LCC) system, 62
classification of, 25, 27, 3334, 36, 39, Java, 166, 204 line charts, 11
6169, 106, 247 Jeong, Hawoong, 170 linguistics, 25, 27, 43, 81, 83, 87, 173
collective intelligence and, 25254 Jews, 23, 24, 28 Linked (Barabsi), 71
context and, 25557 Joachim of Fiore, 2831 Linkfluence, 60, 101, 165
data collection and, 24647 Jones, Kristin M., 236 links
digitally native, 12 Jordan, Chris, 257 expressive edges and, 88 (see also edges)
disappearing, 16 Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 23031 hyperlinks and, 44, 97, 127, 154, 169
emergence theory and, 253 Joyce, James, 184 macro view and, 91
GPS and, 14649, 178, 224, 246, 25556 Joy Division, 129 nodes and, 1516, 28 (see also nodes)
graphic language and, 12 Judelman, Greg, 185 Linnaeus, Carl, 65, 67
interaction and, 24748 Julia Set fractal, 20 Listening History (Byron), 128
intricacy management and, 9295 Just Landed (Thorp), 83, 150 literature, 12227
Kirwan on, 25254 Jute Networks, 113, 174 LivePlasma (Vavrille), 209
McLuhan on, 245 Jython, 166 Lloyd, E. Keith, 74
mapping of, 12 Llull, Ramon, 3133
Mass-Observation project and, 246, 248 K Locus (King), 192
networks and, 1618 (see also Networks) Kabbalah, 2325 Lombardi, Mark, 72
news and, 13237 Kabbalah Tree, The: A Journey of Balance & Growth London Connections (Niedersberg), 193
ordered complexity and, 22631 (Pollack), 24 London GPS Tracking Map (Carden and Coast), 148, 224
patterns in, 13 Kamalipour, Yahya R., 56 London Underground, 172
relevancy and, 8283 Kant, Immanuel, 2728 Looks del.icio.us (Anand), 63, 106
RFID and, 25556 Kasara, Robert, 13 Lopez, Samuel Granados, 133
rhizomes and, 4345, 69, 158, 192, 235, Kelly, Kevin, 97, 241 Lorand, Ruth, 231
241, 253 Kerouac, Jack, 204 Lorenz, Edward, 229
software of intelligence and, 254 Kether (crown), 23 Lorson, Dennis, 154
structure of, 15 Khoo, Chuan, 195 Love Will Tear Us Apart Again (Crnokrak), 129
trees and, 2540 (see also trees) King, Robert, 192 LRI Co-authorship Network (Fekete), 105
ubiquitous datasphere and, 5457 Kirchhoff, Gustav Robert, 75 Lumeta Corporation, 121
understanding data and, 12 Kirwan, Christopher Grant, 25254 Luon, Yarun, 168
Wikipedia and, 59, 87, 89, 15458 Kitware, Inc., 117 Lyon, Barrett, 119
word of mouth, 15 Klavans, Dick, 42, 104 Lyotard, Jean-Franois, 241, 243
Yau on, 24648 Klerkx, Joris, 108
Information Anxiety (Wurman, Sume, and Leifer), 88, 245 Kloeckl, Kristian, 176 M
information design, 11 Knowledge Cartography (Quaggiotto), 167 Machado, Penousal, 147
information technology (IT), 86 Knowles, Josh, 116 macro view, 91
Information: The New Language of Science (von Bayer), Koberle, Andreas, 199 Magnocavallo, Ludovico, 98
245 Koblin, Aaron, 176 Malevich, Kasimir, 12
informative art concept, 249 Koffka, Kurt, 88 Malkuth (kingdom), 23
In Silence (Shiota), 239 Kohler, Wolfgang, 91 Mandelbrot, Benot, 229
Inspiration, Vision, Intuitive Decision (Greenberg), 231 Koller, Andreas, 12425 Manovich, Lev, 1113
Institute Without Boundaries, 97 Knigsberg Bridge Problem, 7475 mapmakers, 7980
Instrument and Gridplane, 209 Korzybski, Alfred, 80 Map of Science (Bollen, Van de Sompel, Hagberg,
interaction design, 11 Krzywinski, Martin, 197 Bettencourt, Chute, et al.), 201
Interactive Activation (Cleeremans), 215 Kunin, V., 68 Map of Terrorism, A (Bunting), 143
Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), 116 Kupka, Frank, 12 mapping. See also visualization
Interactorium, The (Widjaja), 138 Kurzweil, Ray, 254 abstract and, 81
internet, 15 Blogviz and, 1516
ARPANET and, 5456 L clarification and, 8081
as ubiquitous datasphere, 5457 Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique (LRI), 105 document and, 80
development of, 54 Lang, Tyler, 194, 257 expand and, 81
hyperlinks and, 44, 97, 127, 154, 169 language, 17. See also new language GPS and, 14649, 178, 224, 246, 25556
infinite interconnectedness and, 11821 of information, 12 reveal and, 81
social networks and, 5761 linguistics, and 25, 27, 43, 81, 83, 87, 173 thematic, 80
Internet Autonomous Systems (Alvarez-Hamelin, Beir, Lantin, Maria, 185 Mapping Complex Diseases (Rzhetsky, et al.), 175
DallAsta, Barrat, and Vespignani), 120, 201 large canvas, 224 Mapping Scientific Paradigms (Paley, Klavans, and
Internet Map (Harrison), 118 Last.fm, 128, 130, 161, 182, 188 Boyack), 42
Internet Map (Lumeta Corporation), 121 Lawn (GPS Drawing) (Wood), 148 Mapping WoW Teams (Rubinstein, Luon, Halai, and
intricacy management, 9295 law of common fate, 91 Suciu), 168
IP addresses, 16 law of proximity, 91 Marcotte, Edward, 13940
IP Mapping (Coast), 121, 232 law of similarity, 91 Marineau, Ren, 75
Index 269
decoding networks and, 7588, 9195 Ouzounis, Christos, 67, 68 Protein Folding Network, The (Rao and Caflisch), 141
edges and, 75, 79, 81, 84, 86, 88, 90, 91, Overnewsed but uninformed (Brautigan), 13637 Protein Homology Network (Adai and Marcotte), 139
95, 104, 13940, 165, 236 overview, 93 Protein-Protein Interaction Modeling (Uetz), 171
expansion of, 86 Oxford Fisheye (GPS Drawing) (Wood and Pryor), 148 Protein-Protein Network (Jeong), 170
individual, 92 proteins, 15, 79, 97, 13841, 17071
infinite interconnectedness and, 100, 104, 117, 120 P Prudence, Paul, 229
internet and, 5456, 61 Pair of Trees with Side-shoots, A (Joachim of Fiore), 30 Pryor, Hugh, 148
links and, 1516, 28, 39, 42 (see also links) Paley, W. Bradford, 42, 85, 104, 123, 184, 18687 psychological geography, 7579
macro view and, 91 Papanikolas, Theresa, 241 psychology
networkism and, 236 Parsons School of Design, 15 ants and, 226
new language syntax and, 16465, 171, 174, Participatory Sensing, 246 Gestalt, 88, 91, 22223, 231, 256
2024, 209, 215, 218 Pascal, Blaise, 221 Hicks Law and, 92
richer, 86 Pascual, Anne, 211 perceptual, 23031
shrinking, 86 Pathway, 154 swarm behavior and, 226
trees and, 23 Pathway (Lorson), 154 Ptolemy, 79
nonlinearity, 17, 4445, 232, 236 Pattern of Language, A: Towns, Buildings, Construction PublicMaps (Jute Networks), 113, 174
noosphere, 61 (Alexander), 46 Purdue University, 56
Northway, Mary, 76, 77, 78, 79 pattern recognition, 215, 223, 226, 229, 236 Python, 166
Number 5 (Pollock), 227 Patterns in Oscar Movies (Grubbs and Yahnke), 215
Nuremberg Chronicle (Schedel), 26 Paul De Koninck Laboratory, 225, 230 Q
NYTimes: 365/360 (Thorp), 134 Pavlo, Andrew, 210 Quaggiotto, Marco, 130, 133, 167
Pedigree of Man (Haeckel), 26 Questioning the Line: Gego in Context (Ramrez and
O Peltz, Daniel, 195 Papanikolas), 241
Oaks (Blaum), 225 Penses (Pascal), 221 questions, 82
Obama, Barack, 111, 174, 253 Peoples Cyclopedia of Universal Knowledge (De Puy), 49
Obesity System Influence Diagram (Vandenbroeck, Personal Friendster Network (Heer), 96 R
Goossens, and Clemens), 194 Peter of Spain, 28 radial convergence, 158, 19699
Offenhuber, Dietmar, 181 Peters, Keith, 228, 229 radial implosion, 158, 200203
Oil Money (Bender-deMoll and Michalec), 110 Phan, Doantam, 191 radio-frequency identification devices (RFID), 25556
Olcer, Inan, 106 philosophy, 253 ramification, 158, 2047
Oliveira, Ana Balona de, 23536 brain studies and, 48, 52 Ramrez, Mari Carmen, 241
On, Josh, 112 complex beauty and, 223, 23031, 241 RAND Corporation, 54
On Distributed Communications (Baran), 54 essentialism and, 44, 6465 Random Lissajous Webs (Peters), 228
One Week of the Guardian (Bowker), 135 networks and, 48, 52, 6265, 80 Rao, Francesco, 141
ongoing process, 224 organic whole and, 48 rationalization, 21, 3334, 57
On Growth and Form (Thompson), 221 trees and, 25, 2728, 3136, 39, 44, 48 Ratkiewicz, Jacob, 152
Onnela, Jukka-Pekka, 206 Philpot, J. H., 22, 23 Ray, John, 65
On the Road (Kerouac), 204 phrenology, 48, 49, 52 Real Middle Earth, The: Exploring the Magic and
Onyro, 130 PhyloCode, 69 Mystery of the Middle Ages (Bates), 22
Open-Source Spying (Strausfeld and Sears), 142 phylogenetics, 6569 Reas, Casey, 229
OpenStreetMap.org, 146 Physica (Aristotle), 64 Reddy, Anoop, 170
Operation Smile (Firstborn and Digital Kitchen), 202, 233 physics, 18, 23, 31, 3334, 64, 73, 104, 229, 232 Reflexive Ecologies: Visualizing Priorities (McConville),
Opte Project (Lyon), 119 pie charts, 11 25557
ordered complexity, 22631 Pierre, Sebastien, 173 Regularities and Randomness: Evolving Schemata in
Order of the Just, 28 Pietro, Discacciati, 191 Science and the Arts (Gell-Mann), 226
Organic Link Network (Stefaner), 94 Platform for Art, 172 relationship view, 92
organic rhizome, 158, 19295 Plato, 64, 252 Relevance: Communication and Cognition (Sperber), 82
organization of knowledge Playfair, William, 75 relevancy, 8283
ancient Greeks and, 2728 Pliny the Elder, 33 religion
centralism and, 4344 Poetry on the Road (Muller), 212 brain and, 48
city planning and, 4648 PoliticoSphere.net (Rohmer), 100 Buddhists, 23
early pioneers in, 27 Pollack, Rachel, 22, 24, 25 Christians, 23, 25, 28, 30, 31, 59, 61, 125
encylopedism and, 33 Pollock, Jackson, 22324, 225, 227, 22931 Hindus, 23, 125
folksonomy and, 6264, 106 Pollocks Traces (Taylor), 225 holy books and, 23, 24, 25, 28, 31, 61, 161,
grouping and, 88, 91 Plya, George, 75 12425
networks and, 73 (see also networks) Pombo, Olga, 25 Joachim of Fiore and, 2831
neural landscape and, 4854 Popper, Karl, 223 Muslims, 23, 28
ordered complexity and, 22631 Porphyry, 2728 theology and, 17, 21, 28, 31, 33, 61
ordering nature and, 6469 Porpora, Mario, 190 trees and, 2124
Porphyry and, 2728 Portae lucis (Doors of light) (Riccius), 24 Rembold, Magnus, 126
rhizomes and, 4345, 69, 158, 192, 235, Porteous, Alexander, 22 Renaissance, 28, 33, 65
241, 253 Posavec, Stefanie, 122, 2045 Research Chronology 2 (Siegel), 107
semantics and, 27, 64, 79, 86, 167, 217, 219 Poverty Red Thread, The (Density Design), 191 Reticulrea (Gego), 24142
trees and, 2540 power grids, 15 Retrieving General and Specific Information from Stored
ubiquitous datasphere and, 5457 Powers of Ten (Eames and Eames), 255 Knowledge of Specifics (McClelland), 215
Organon (Aristotle), 27 Preus, Anthony, 27 Revalicous-SpaceNav (Pierre and Zitvogel), 173
Origin of Species, The (Darwin), 21, 65, 66, 122 Primer of Sociometry, A (Northway), 76, 77, 78 Reynolds, Craig, 226
Orkut, 165 Primer of Visual Literacy, A (Dondis), 222 rhizomes, 4345, 69
Ortega, Jose Luis, 169 Principia philosophiae (Descartes), 34, 36 complex beauty and, 235, 241
Orthologous Groups, 140 Processing Flickr Group (Koberle), 199 emergence theory and, 253
Ortiz, Mariona, 130 property, 27 infinite interconnectedness and, 158
Ortiz, Santiago, 196, 219 proprietatibus rerum, De (Anglicus), 33 networkism and, 235, 241
Index 271
classification and, 25, 27, 3334, 36, 39, 62 Vespignani, A., 120, 202 W
Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) and, 62 Videosphere (Bestiario), 217 Walrus (CAIDA), 218
early system representation and, 21 Vincent of Beauvais, 33 Walworth, Catherine, 235
encylopedism and, 33 Virgin Mary, 31 Wattenberg, Martin, 160
family, 25, 26 VisualComplexity.com, 11, 13, 16 Watz, Marius, 228, 229
finalism and, 44 visualization Weaver, Warren, 44, 45, 58, 69
folklore and, 2223 adaptive zooming and, 93 web design, 11
hierarchy and, 21, 25, 2728, 36, 41, 4346, aesthetics and, 1213, 80, 22223, 226, web routers, 16
57, 58, 59, 6266, 69 23031, 241, 256 Websites as Graphs (Salath), 206
of knowledge, 2540 Blogviz and, 1516 Website Traffic Map (Spahr), 219
leaves and, 25, 41, 62, 64, 122, 224 Brinton on, 8182 Weigel, Sigrid, 67
Liber figuram, 2831 complex beauty and, 22144 Weinberger, David, 62
links and, 1516, 28 (see also links) complexity and, 1113 Weiner, Norbert, 25254
May Day, 22 composition and, 95, 159, 222, 236, 249 Wertheimer, Max, 88
metaphor of, 25 context and, 93, 95, 25557 We Show the Money (Borgna), 113
mysterious forests and, 22 cybernetics and, 25254 Weskamp, Marcos, 117, 174
neural landscape and, 4854 detail and, 93 Who Shall Survive? A New Approach to The Problem
phylogenetics and, 6569 ecological, 25557 of Human Interrelations (Moreno), 76
as precursor of network diagrams, 21 embracing time and, 84, 86 Widjaja, Yose, 138
primeval connection with, 25 enabling multivariate analysis, 8384 Wikinomics (Tapscott and Williams), 59
rhizomes and, 4345, 69, 158, 192, 235, enriching vocabulary and, 86, 88 Wikipedia, 59, 87, 89, 15458
241, 253 exposing grouping and, 88, 91 WikiProject Maps, 89
sacred, 2224 focus and, 93, 95 WikiViz (Harrison), 15657
Sephirotic, 23, 24 future issues of, 17, 24557 Williams, Anthony D., 59
subgroups and, 25 Gestalt psychology and, 88, 91, 22223, 231, 256 Wilson, Robin J., 74
as symbols of prosperity, 22 GPS and, 14649, 178, 224, 246, 25556 Winograd, Terry, 191
top-down metaphor and, 43 Hicks Law and, 92 Wolton, Richard, 179
trunk and, 21, 25, 28, 30, 31, 34, 36, 39, holism and, 22223 Wood, Jeremy, 146, 148
44, 66 infinite interconnectedness and, 97158 (see Woolman, Matt, 159
as universal metaphor, 21 also infinite interconnectedness) word of mouth, 15
Tree versus semilattice (Salingaros), 47 of information, 1112 (see also information) World, The (Descartes), 34
Tribe.net, 165 intricacy management and, 9295 World Finance Corporation and Association (Lombardi),
Tricot, Christophe, 94 law of common and, 91 72
Trinitarian Tree Circles, the (Joachim of Fiore), 30 law of proximity and, 91 World is Flat, The (Friedman), 61
Truthy (Ratkiewicz, et al.), 152 law of similarity and, 91 World Wide Web, 15, 7980
Tufte, Edward, 84 layout and, 12, 17, 46, 59, 82, 95, 140, 159 dead links and, 16
TuneGlue (Onyro), 130 McConville on, 25557 emergence theory and, 253
Turing, Alan, 229 macro view and, 91 growth of, 56
TweetWheel (Becciu), 151 managing intricacy and, 9295 hyperlinks and, 44, 97, 127, 154, 169
Twitter, 83, 15053, 248 maximizing scaling and, 9192 network thinking and, 6971
Twitter Friends Browser (Temmerman), 153 micro view and, 92 Woudanus, Jan Cornelius, 63
2004 U.S. Election and Political Blogosphere, The Moere on, 24951 Writing Without Words (Posavec), 2045
(Adamic and Glance), 101 music and, 12831 Wurman, Richard Saul, 88, 245
2008 Presidential Candidate Donations (Grubbs and new language and, 159220 (see also new
Yahnke), 11112 language) X
2Roqs, 21617 new techniques and, 12 Xiao, Ling, 191
Typographic Links (Collier), 127 overview and, 93
typography, 95 power of, 255 Y
Typologies and Capacities (de Bruijn and van principles of network, 8195 Yahnke, Nick, 11112, 215
Heeswijk), 180 relationships and, 1516, 92 Yau, Nathan, 24648, 250
relevancy and, 8283 Yeh, Ron, 191
U starting with a question and, 82 Yesod (foundation), 23
Uchida, Makoto, 100 time and, 8486 yFiles Visualization (yWorks), 204
Uetz, Peter, 171 topology and, 15, 44, 54, 69, 73, 75, 79, 83, YouTube, 62
Ulysses (Joyce), 184 9192, 118, 121, 179, 224, 232, yWorks, 204
University of Applied Sciences, 114, 214 23536, 243
University of New South Wales, 138 Visualization of Clustered Graph Layouts (Balzer and Z
University Paris-Sud, 105 Deussen), 164 Zaidi, Ai, 172
urban planning, 18 Visual i/zer (Quaffiotto, Caviglia, and Leibsohn), 130 Zitvogel, Olivier, 173
URLs, 15 Visualizing Data (Fry), 82 zooming, 9293, 166, 230, 255
Visualizing Information Flow in Science (Eigenfactor.org Zorobabel, 31
V and Stefaner), 103
Vaccari, Andrea, 176 Visualizing Online Media (Instrument and Gridplane), 209
Valencia, Alfonso, 196 Visualizing the Bible (Harrison), 161
Vandenbroeck, Philippe, 194 visual portfolios, 11
Vande Moere, Andrew. See Moere, Andrew Vande Vivaldi, Antonio, 160
Vander Wal, Thomas, 62 Vizster, 165
Van de Sompel, H., 201 Voltaire, 39
van Heeswijk, Jeanne, 180 von Baeyer, Hans Christian, 245
variation in intensity, 224 von Gesner, Conrad, 65
Vavrille, Frederic, 209 Vuarnoz, Patrick, 183
Vernadsky, Vladimir, 61