ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION:
Drawing on data collected from past CCCC programs, this panel engages participants with six interactive visualizations or installations that, taken together, point to potentials for re-searching, re-viewing and re-presenting the history and concerns of the CCCC conference.
SESSION DESCRIPTION (5000 characters max, spaces included):
In light of the CCCC's 60th anniversary, members of this panel draw on six decades of conference proceedings to understand what this rich assortment of data might reveal about where we, as a field, have been and where we are headed. Unlike more traditional conference essions, ours is comprised of six free-standing visualizations or remediations of data taken from past conference programs and proceedings. Taken together, these overlapping, interactive installations invite conference participants to experience CCCC’s program history from a variety of different (technologized) perspectives and to consider how various other technologies (both new and not-so-new) might be recruited and/or recombined in ways that allow us to imagine still others ways of re-presenting both our pasts and potentials.
The first presentation is titled "Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC." Using tools developed by researchers in information visualization, this presenter offers a series of interactive views of information generated in and around the CCCC. Zooming in on the 2009 conference, this presenter shows how the titles and abstracts of presentations can be variously viewed to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions. Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty-year history, this presenter offers a visualization that situates the conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held in the past sixty years; along with the location, other information for each year (such as conference/keynote theme, number of conference sessions, cost of a hotel room) provides visual understanding of the development of this conference over the past six decades.
The second presentation is titled "Sixty Maps for Finding Directions" and consists of a video installation and an interactive computer-based text, both of which explore the sort of "distant reading" recommended in the writings of Franco Moretti. The video draws on textual analysis of the presentation and workshop titles of 60 years of CCCC programs to visualize, through animations, patterns built in the overlapping beliefs, hopes, and frustrations of the profession. The interactive text plays off the video by encouraging participants to sit for a while at a computer to remix, literally, those beliefs, hopes, and frustrations; in the process, participants reveal for themselves gaps and so potentials for new perspectives and new research.
The third presentation, consisting of a short video and a multi-object display, is titled “Revisiting Relevance, Remediating Rigor.” With the video, the presenter looks to a series of CCCC workshop reports published in CCC during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and examines the different ways in which, and means through which, the relevancy versus rigor debate has been represented and responded to by conference participants. With the multi-object display, the presenter drawing on theories of mediated activity (Wertsch, Hutchins, Prior, Scollon, Latour) to document the various processes that we, the three panel presenters, employed as we collaborated on this session throughout its lifespan (i.e., from the drafting of the proposal through the composition of the six installations). The display works to juxtapose this (“our”) highly distributed process with representations of process drawn from past CCCC proceedings in hopes of inviting participant to rethink the look, sound, feel, distribution and purpose of composing narratives/process studies.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
just cutting
Here's a version of my paragraph that's better (I hope) and shorter: from 1154 to 985 characters, spaces included.
The first presentation is titled "Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC." Using tools developed by researchers in information visualization, this presenter offers a series of interactive views of information generated in and around the CCCC. Zooming in on the 2009 conference, this presenter shows how the titles and abstracts of presentations can be variously viewed to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions. Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty-year history, this presenter offers a visualization that situates the conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held in the past sixty years. Along with the location, other information for each year (such as conference/keynote theme, number of conference sessions, cost of a hotel room) provides visual understanding of the development of this conference over the past six decades.
The first presentation is titled "Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC." Using tools developed by researchers in information visualization, this presenter offers a series of interactive views of information generated in and around the CCCC. Zooming in on the 2009 conference, this presenter shows how the titles and abstracts of presentations can be variously viewed to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions. Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty-year history, this presenter offers a visualization that situates the conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held in the past sixty years. Along with the location, other information for each year (such as conference/keynote theme, number of conference sessions, cost of a hotel room) provides visual understanding of the development of this conference over the past six decades.
variations on a theme
Six Decades/Six Ways
Session Description (5000 characters max, spaces included):
In light of CCCC 60th anniversary, members of this panel draw on six decades worth of conference proceedings in an attempt to better understand what this rich assortment of data might reveal about where we, as a field, have been and where we are headed. Unlike more traditional conference panels/sessions, ours is comprised of six free-standing (self-guided?) visualizations or remediations of data taken from past conference programs and proceedings. Taken together, these overlapping, interactive installations invite conference participants to experience CCCC’s program history from a variety of different (technologized) perspectives and to consider how various other technologies (both new and not-so-new) might be recruited and/or recombined in ways that allow us to imagine still others ways of re-presenting both our pasts and potentials.
The first set of installations is titled, "Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC." Using tools developed by researchers in information visualization (a subfield of computer science for visually representing non-physical data), this presenter offers a series of interactive views of information generated in and around the CCCC. This presenter shows how the titles and abstracts of 2009 presentations can be variously combined to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions, presenting potential new ways of experiencing the conference itself. Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty year history, this presenter offers a visualization that situates this conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held in the past 60 years. Along with the location, other information for each year (such as conference/keynote theme, number of conference attendees, cost of a hotel room, number of students enrolled in post-secondary schools) provides visual understanding of the development of this conference over the past six decades.
The second presentation is titled "Sixty Belief Systems, Sixty Dreams, Sixty Maps" and consists of two short videos. Using the sort of "distant reading" recommended in the writings of Franco Moretti, this presenter draws on textual analysis of the presentation titles of the previous 59 years of CCCC programs to visualize, animatedly, the patterns that make the overlapping beliefs, hopes, and frustrations of the profession; the second video performs the same visualizations for the 2009 program.
Monday, May 5, 2008
A proposal?
title: Six Decades, Six Ways
one sentence description:
This panel uses past CCCC programs to provide six interactive visualizations and representations for considering the history and concerns of the CCCC conference.
Session Description (5000 characters max, spaces included):
Our panel is focused around two questions: What have we learned from major waves made by rhetoricians and compositionists in the past 60 years? and How might we think about pasts and futures in light of what various technologies (both new and not-so-new) enable us to see and do?
Those who attend this panel will interact with six different visualizations and representations of past CCCCs programs. Not a traditional panel, this is rather a set of overlapping installations people can visit in any order, talking with the presenters about what one can learn from looking at CCCC's program history from different (technologized) perspectives.
The first set of installations is titled, "Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC." This presenter uses tools developed by researchers in information visualization (a subfield of computer science for visually representing non-physical data) to create interactive views of information generated in and around the CCCC. This presenter shows how the titles and abstracts of 2009 presentations can be variously combined to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions, presenting potential new ways of experiencing the conference itself. Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty year history, this presenter offers a visualization that situates this conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held in the past 60 years. Along with the location, other information for each year (such as conference/keynote theme, number of conference attendees, cost of a hotel room, number of students enrolled in post-secondary schools) provides visual understanding of the development of this conference over the past six decades.
The second presentation is titled "Sixty Belief Systems, Sixty Dreams, Sixty Maps" and consists of two short videos. Using the sort of "distant reading" recommended in the writings of Franco Moretti, this presenter draws on textual analysis of the presentation titles of the previous 59 years of CCCC programs to visualize, animatedly, the patterns that make the overlapping beliefs, hopes, and frustrations of the profession; the second video performs the same visualizations for the 2009 program.
one sentence description:
This panel uses past CCCC programs to provide six interactive visualizations and representations for considering the history and concerns of the CCCC conference.
Session Description (5000 characters max, spaces included):
Our panel is focused around two questions: What have we learned from major waves made by rhetoricians and compositionists in the past 60 years? and How might we think about pasts and futures in light of what various technologies (both new and not-so-new) enable us to see and do?
Those who attend this panel will interact with six different visualizations and representations of past CCCCs programs. Not a traditional panel, this is rather a set of overlapping installations people can visit in any order, talking with the presenters about what one can learn from looking at CCCC's program history from different (technologized) perspectives.
The first set of installations is titled, "Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC." This presenter uses tools developed by researchers in information visualization (a subfield of computer science for visually representing non-physical data) to create interactive views of information generated in and around the CCCC. This presenter shows how the titles and abstracts of 2009 presentations can be variously combined to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions, presenting potential new ways of experiencing the conference itself. Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty year history, this presenter offers a visualization that situates this conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held in the past 60 years. Along with the location, other information for each year (such as conference/keynote theme, number of conference attendees, cost of a hotel room, number of students enrolled in post-secondary schools) provides visual understanding of the development of this conference over the past six decades.
The second presentation is titled "Sixty Belief Systems, Sixty Dreams, Sixty Maps" and consists of two short videos. Using the sort of "distant reading" recommended in the writings of Franco Moretti, this presenter draws on textual analysis of the presentation titles of the previous 59 years of CCCC programs to visualize, animatedly, the patterns that make the overlapping beliefs, hopes, and frustrations of the profession; the second video performs the same visualizations for the 2009 program.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
drafty draft
Thinking of the Friday deadline and of all the other things I have to do in the coming week, I thought I’d try to put out a rough draft of what I’m thinking of proposing for our panel. It’s pretty much just a slightly expanded version of what I’ve already written about here. Let me know what you think.
Since I’m proposing to show two kinds of visualizations, this would fit into Jody’s “six decades, six ways” approach if you each want to take up two other views; otherwise, I’d be happy to adjust or differently scale what I’ve written here if you want to not have to add up to six.
I’d also be happy to take a stab (excuse the metaphor) at writing the introduction/overview of our panel. I went back through past blog entries/emails and was drawn to these questions that Jody wrote as a way of focusing our panel: “What have we learned from major waves made by rhetoricians and compositionists in the past 60 years?” “How might we think about pasts and futures in light of what various technologies (both new and not-so-new) allow us to do, to be, to think?”
By the way, I love the idea you mentioned in your last blog entry, Jody, of using the floor plans in the conference program to create a game experience of some kind, and of designing an alternative navigation for all those ads in the back of the program. These two elements of the conference and the program are completely familiar to everyone, and so actually talking about them and defamiliarizing them has the potential to yield some interesting insights and a-ha moments.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the drafty draft:
Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC
In this presentation, I demonstrate several visualizations of the CCCC—zooming in on the 2008 conference as well as zooming out so to view the fifty-nine previous conferences—in order to open this event to different perspectives and insights. Using tools developed by researchers in information visualization, a subfield of computer science that aims to visually represent non-physical data, I will create and discuss interactive views of some of the information generated in and around the CCCC.
Zooming in on the 2009 conference, I will present different ways of viewing the content of the program. Visualization tools found at TAPor and elsewhere allow for analysis and visual representation of text in the program—either the titles or abstracts (depending on availability) of all of the presentations—in order to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions, thereby presenting potential new ways of experiencing the conference itself. More generally, the recent development of interactive text visualization—of poetry and political speeches, in particular [I’ll fill in some references here]— can expand our understanding of visual rhetoric: our sense of the relation between text and image and of what we might learn by seeing text as image.
Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty year history, I will present a visualization that allows us to situate this conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held over the past 60 years. Along with the location, other information for each year—such as the conference/keynote theme, the number of conference attendees, the cost of a hotel room, the number of students enrolled in post-secondary schools—will provide a way of understanding the development of this conference over the past six decades.[I’ll put in some references here to Tufte, Gapminder, and Trulia Hindsight.] [And here's where the clever closing sentence goes.]
Since I’m proposing to show two kinds of visualizations, this would fit into Jody’s “six decades, six ways” approach if you each want to take up two other views; otherwise, I’d be happy to adjust or differently scale what I’ve written here if you want to not have to add up to six.
I’d also be happy to take a stab (excuse the metaphor) at writing the introduction/overview of our panel. I went back through past blog entries/emails and was drawn to these questions that Jody wrote as a way of focusing our panel: “What have we learned from major waves made by rhetoricians and compositionists in the past 60 years?” “How might we think about pasts and futures in light of what various technologies (both new and not-so-new) allow us to do, to be, to think?”
By the way, I love the idea you mentioned in your last blog entry, Jody, of using the floor plans in the conference program to create a game experience of some kind, and of designing an alternative navigation for all those ads in the back of the program. These two elements of the conference and the program are completely familiar to everyone, and so actually talking about them and defamiliarizing them has the potential to yield some interesting insights and a-ha moments.
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the drafty draft:
Zooming in and Out: Alternative Views of the CCCC
In this presentation, I demonstrate several visualizations of the CCCC—zooming in on the 2008 conference as well as zooming out so to view the fifty-nine previous conferences—in order to open this event to different perspectives and insights. Using tools developed by researchers in information visualization, a subfield of computer science that aims to visually represent non-physical data, I will create and discuss interactive views of some of the information generated in and around the CCCC.
Zooming in on the 2009 conference, I will present different ways of viewing the content of the program. Visualization tools found at TAPor and elsewhere allow for analysis and visual representation of text in the program—either the titles or abstracts (depending on availability) of all of the presentations—in order to discern key themes and preoccupations that cut across speakers and sessions, thereby presenting potential new ways of experiencing the conference itself. More generally, the recent development of interactive text visualization—of poetry and political speeches, in particular [I’ll fill in some references here]— can expand our understanding of visual rhetoric: our sense of the relation between text and image and of what we might learn by seeing text as image.
Zooming out to view the CCCC’s sixty year history, I will present a visualization that allows us to situate this conference historically and geographically. This visualization will display an interactive timeline that maps the cities in which the CCCC has been held over the past 60 years. Along with the location, other information for each year—such as the conference/keynote theme, the number of conference attendees, the cost of a hotel room, the number of students enrolled in post-secondary schools—will provide a way of understanding the development of this conference over the past six decades.[I’ll put in some references here to Tufte, Gapminder, and Trulia Hindsight.] [And here's where the clever closing sentence goes.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)