Mgr. Tomáš Dvořák, Ph.D. (Institute of Sociological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague)
Sociological Technoimagination: Theory and History of Visualizations in the Social Sciences
1. Grant Objectives
The research project intends to survey forms, functions, and historical transformations of visualizations (graphs, diagrams, maps, models, simulations, and animations) used in the social sciences since the early 19th century. It does not aim to produce a systematic and exhaustive account of these methods, but rather to select several crucial and illustrative moments of their development, interpret them from the point of view of history and methodology of science and situate them within a larger context of the history of modern visual culture. Although the role of visual media in modern society has been analyzed extensively, their instrumentality within sciences is only beginning to be articulated. In Czech academia, the problem of visualization in social sciences has gone virtually unnoticed.
2. Previous Research
The role and status of images in science were traditionally marginalized: the tradition of modern thought separated art from science, rational (essentially mathematical and logical) thinking from the free play of imagination. If images were reflected upon at all, they were conceived mainly in terms of “scientific illustration,” an activity subordinate to and dependent upon verbal concepts that played role mainly in the popularization of knowledge. A certain reassessment of the relationship of text and image came in the 1980s with the rise of “information visualization,” “visual analysis,” “information graphics,” etc. [Chen 2003, 2006; Jacobson 2000] – with the fields that are understood as branches of computer graphics and user interface design and are concerned with presenting (mainly quantitative) data by means of images. These images are envisaged as more than illustrations, as scientific instruments per se. Their purpose is to create and test hypotheses, to get grip of large amounts of quantitative data and make them intelligible, to animate, simulate, and control various processes.
However, it would be misleading to mark this shift in scientific visuality with the rise of computer graphics. It is the first half of the nineteenth century when various technical instruments were developed with the aim of producing all kinds of graphs, schemes, and diagrams. The first comprehensive analysis of these new methods in both natural and social sciences was given by Étienne-Jules Marey in The Graphic Method in the Experimental Sciences [1878]. Marey’s own graphic, photographic, and chronographic works are some of the most important contributions to this field; his apparatuses were intended to make the invisible visible and so put it under human control. In recent years Marey has been in the centre of attention of several historians of media and science [Braun 1995; Dagognet 1997; Hankins – Silverman 1999; Mannoni 2004], however, the focus rests primarily on the natural sciences.
Concerning the realm of visualizations within the social sciences, we have plenty of manuals and practical textbooks available (let’s mention at least the classics by Edward R. Tufte 1983, 1990), yet only very few critical histories or theoretical assessments of the phenomenon. The most important among the few exceptions are works by Otto Neurath [1996], related to his “Isotype” project, or the more recent article by Bruno Latour [1986]. A very useful survey of the different historical forms of visualizations in the social sciences can be found in the web-based project “Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization” of Michael Friendly and Daniel J. Denis [2001], however, it is a mere illustrated chronology lacking any substantial explication.
My aim is to draw on these sparse investigations as well as on the more extensive research of visualizations in the 19th–20th century natural sciences [Baird 2004; Daston – Galison 2007; Galison 1997; Gitelman 1999; Latour – Woolgar 1986; Lenoir 1998; Maynard 2005] and analyze the subject of sociological technoimagination not only from the perspective of philosophy and history of science but also in its relationship to other forms of modern visual media and other methods of technological inscription [Crary 1990; Kittler 1985].
I have initiated my own research of this field in 2008 within a larger project investigating the relationship of “old” and “new” media and published two articles outlining the basic contours of the phenomenon [Dvořák 2008, 2009]. I wish to pursue my research of the forms and functions of visualizations in the social sciences further in the next three years, along the following themes and according to the following schedule.
3. Research Structure and Plan
The project intends to present the field of sociological technoimagination via critical interpretations of selected moments of its history. Their tentative list consists of:
–William Playfair’s thematic cartography
–Lavater and sociology: physiognomical and sociological sketches of the early 19th century
–Étienne-Jules Marey’s graphic method
–the composite portraits of Francis Galton
–Gabriel Tarde: statistics as a photograph of society
–Otto Neurath’s visual education and visual encyclopedia
–new media and contemporary curve–landscapes
I wish to analyze these and other examples with reference to three main problem areas:
1. Graphic method: from illustration to visualization in science
The shift from scientific illustration to visualization is mainly being linked to the emergence of computer graphics in the 1980s. I wish to challenge this assumption by reinterpreting the field of the graphic method of the 19th century and show that the introduction of various apparatuses of inscription (be they technological or bureaucratic) brought about a decisive shift in the methodology of science. Although today’s media allow the use of images in much larger spectrum and more productively, we need to understand them as an offspring of these earlier tendencies in technical image production.
2. Image, text, and interdisciplinarity
The framework of the proposed research is necessarily interdisciplinary: it proceeds on the borders of history and methodology of science, history and theory of visual media, semiotics, and philosophy. The scope is suggested by the many “graphing” disciplines of the 19th century: photography, cinematography, cardiography, telegraphy, seismography etc. A whole range of appliances and institutions proceeds from this historically specific practice of mechanical inscription, which aims primarily at making the invisible visible and so to assume control over it.
3. Social functions of visualizations
In the first decades of the 19th century, the presentation of statistical data shifted from numerical tables to graphs, diagrams, and charts. This transformation was not stimulated only by the problems faced by scientists themselves (such as the need for more convenient and productive ways of dealing with large amounts of data) but also by new demands placed on science as such – the new role it assumed in modern society. In images, science could reach much wider audience and transform itself into the new and sophisticated Orbis Pictus.
4. Selected Bibliography
Baird, Davis. 2004. Thing Knowledge. A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments. University of California Press.
Braun, Martha (1995). Picturing Time. The Work of Étienne-Jules Marey (1830–1904). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chen, Chaomei (2003). Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization. Springer.
Chen, Chaomei (2006). Information Visualization: Beyond the Horizon. Springer.
Clarke, Bruce (ed.). 2002. From Energy to Information. Representation in Science and Technology, Art, and Literature. Stanford University Press.
Crary, Jonathan. 1990. Techniques of the Observer. On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century. The MIT Press.
Dagognet, Francois (1997). Etienne-Jules Marey: La passion de la trace. Paris: Hazan.
Daston, Lorraine – Galison, Peter L. 2007. Objectivity. Zone Books.
Daston, Lorraine. 2000. Biographies of Scientific Objects. University of Chicago Press.
Dvořák, Tomáš 2008. Sociologická technoimaginace [Sociological Technoimagination]. Teorie vědy/Theory of Science, Vol. 30, No. 3–4, 2008, pp. 81–112.
Dvořák, Tomáš 2009. Toward Sociological Technoimagination. In: Grace, H. (ed.), Technovisuality and Cultural Reenchantment. Hong Kong (forthcoming).
Friendly, M. – Denis, D. J. (2001). Milestones in the history of thematic cartography, statistical graphics, and data visualization. Web document,
Funkhouser, H. Gray. 1937. „Historical Development of the Graphical Representation of Statistical Data.“ Osiris 3 (): 269-404.
Galison, Peter L. 1997. Image and Logic. A Material Culture of Microphysics. University of Chicago Press.
Gitelman, Lisa. 1999. Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines. Representing Technology in the Edison Era. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hankins, T. L. – Silverman, R. J. (1999). Instruments and the Imagination. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jacobson, Robert, ed. (2000). Information Design. The MIT Press.
Kittler, Friedrich. 1985. Aufschreibesysteme 1800/1900. München: Fink.
Latour, Bruno. 1986. „Visualization and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands.“ Knowledge and Society 6 (): 1-40.
Latour, Bruno, Woolgar, Steve. 1986. Laboratory Life. Princeton University Press.
Latour, Bruno. 1996. Petites leçons de sociologie des sciences. Paris: Seuil.
Lenoir, Timothy. (ed.) 1998. Inscribing Science. Scientific Texts and the Materiality of Communiation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Link, Jürgen. 2004. „The Normalistic Subject and Its Curves: On the Symbolic Visualization of Orienteering Data.“ Culture Critique (57): 47-67.
Mannoni, Laurent (2004). Mouvements de l'air - Etienne-Jules Marey, photographe des fluides. Paris: Gallimard.
Marey, Étienne-Jules (1878). La méthode graphique dans les sciences expérimentales et principalement en physiologie et en médecine. Paris: G. Masson.
Maynard, Patrick. 2005. Drawing Distinctions. The Varieties of Graphic Expression. Ithaa: Cornell University Press.
Neurath, Otto. 1996. „Visual Education.“ In: Nemeth, Elisabeth, Stadler, Friedrich (eds.), Encyclopedia and Utopia. The Life and Work of Otto Neurath (1882-1945). Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 245-335.
Sekula, Allan. 1984. Photography Against the Grain: Essays and Photoworks 1973-1983, Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
Tarde, Gabriel 1903. The Laws of Imitation. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Tufte, Edward R. (1983). The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.
Tufte, Edward R. (1990). Envisioning Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.
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