On Data Visualization: Rhetoric and the Revival of the Body Politic

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On Data Visualization:

Rhetoric and the Revival of

the Body Politic

MA Thesis

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Introduction

In the era that we live in, Western civilization is shaped by digital devices which are slowly but surely infiltrating every aspect of our lives. Every day, people across the world1 are using computers, smartphones and tablets in order to communicate. We connect ourselves to the Internet in order to work, purchase commodities, communicate, entertain and educate ourselves. Most of our everyday activities are performed via this new medium. Digitization is spreading in all aspects of our culture in unimaginable ways. Medicine, biology, media, arts and even fashion are influenced by digital wearable2 technology in a way that can alter our experiences in unexpected and controversial ways. Digital devices have become an extension of human beings in ways that Marshall McLuhan would not have been able to imagine, and they produce a vast amount of information even while we are asleep.

This technological, economic and cultural shift that we are experiencing will have an impact on how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. The data that we produce by using digital devices offer the promise that we can understand our world better. Scientists, institutions, organizations, companies and governments are collecting this data and trying to make sense of it with the intention to better perceive, understand and organize our world. We create policies that shape our societies based on the analyses of this information. Although technology changes in ways that affect-evolve our physiology, we still interact with the external environment through our senses. We mainly use language and images in order to comprehend our world. In an era where we all experience the effects of globalization, sometimes language seems inadequate in order to mediate meanings and information, while images appear to offer a measure of clarity and immediacy that can overcome this barrier. Images are increasingly conquering all aspects of our social life. Academia and politics, two realms that traditionally use language as a means of conveying their ideas, have been yielding to the rhetorical power of images. Scientists, having to deal with huge datasets while conducting research studies, use data visualization in order to depict networks of variables that make their findings more transparent. These technical-computational images have recently made their entry into politics too. Political

1_{It must be stressed, though, that not everybody has access to the Internet and digital devices. The digital divide}

still exists in many parts of the world.

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3 analysts, politicians, governmental and non-governmental organizations are increasingly using data visualization in order to inform and convince people about their position on social issues. Information visualization thus seems to have become a new way of informing and convincing audiences. This fact raises the main research question of this thesis, namely to what extent can

we perceive data visualization as a functional analog to rhetoric? This framing of visualizations

highlights their political aspect and generates doubts regarding their truthfulness. As mentioned above, data visualizations are becoming an integral part of research, which means that they are recognized as tools that produce knowledge. This knowledge shapes our perception regarding the state of affairs and thus influences our actions towards an issue. Data visualizations, though, are a relatively new tool which has not yet been criticized enough in order for their limitations and pitfalls to be exposed. This fact generates a concern regarding the quality and trustworthiness of the knowledge that is to be produced with the use of data visualizations. Hence, the relevance of this thesis stems from the not yet criticized use of data visualization as a tool for conducting research. The intent is to contribute to the New Media field by framing data visualization in a way that emphasizes its relation to politics and governance, and thus to suggest that it must become a subject of critique. Regardless of the dangers that lurk, governments announce policy decisions which rely on the findings of research studies which in some cases can be based on or influenced by data visualization.3 People do not have a say on these decisions and are obligated to accept them as they are. Thus, another issue that this thesis wants to address is the lack of participation that people have in the decision-making processes of their government. If we are to perceive data visualization as a functional analog to rhetoric, and since rhetoric was an integral part of ancient Greek democracy, then perhaps we can use these technological means in order to grant people the power to participate in the decision-making of their state. Thus, the second research question of this thesis is the following: how can data visualization be used, in order to

democratize the Body Politic and make it politically active again?

In order to address these issues the following steps will be followed. The first chapter will be concerned with three tasks, namely to explain the way we interpret the world through images, to analyze the power of images over humans, and finally to depict the modern image we have of

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For an example of government policy being influenced by data visualizations see:

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4 our world. The question of how humans interpret the world through images will be approached using Villem Flusser‟s analysis of technical images. In order to explain the influence that images have on humans, W.J.T Mitchel‟s analysis of the power of images will be used. The reason behind the use of these two analyses is to demonstrate how influential images are as a medium. They do not only help us with making our world comprehensible, they also have the power to shape our social life. Finally, the construction of the contemporary image of the world will be discussed in relation to Flusser‟s framing of what he has called the “new urbanism” (2005, 324). By doing so, a perspective which envisions the world as a network of information will be introduced. This worldview will be criticized in the eighth chapter by showing its links with a specific type of governance which does not openly control the individuals but rather secretly governs the relations that are formed between them. The goal of the second chapter will be to introduce the field of information visualization and discuss its relevance with the perception that everything can be understood as a network. Moreover, it will briefly describe the series of steps that one must make in order to produce a visualization. This chapter will draw on Lev Manovich‟s and Emanuel Lima‟s work on data visualization since they are considered prominent figures in the field. The third chapter will critically engage with the concept of software, as part of the apparatus that is used in order to produce data visualizations. The use of software and its relation to ideology will be discussed through Wendy Chun‟s insights on the matter. Having established this relation, the next step will be to dive into the political aspects of information visualization. Thus, the fourth chapter will first explain the broad relation that aesthetics has with governance and then narrow down its focus to data visualizations since they are aesthetic representations of a dataset. Jacques Ranciere‟s analysis of aesthetics and politics, as well as Warren Sack‟s approach to the relationship between information visualization and governance will be used for this purpose. The fifth chapter will be concerned with addressing the main research question of this thesis. First, a historical overview of rhetoric will be presented in order to show its relation with democracy. During this overview the sophists will be introduced since rhetoric has been considered to be „tainted‟ by their practice, i.e. sophistry. Aristotle‟s framing of rhetoric and Sonja Foss‟s theory of visual rhetoric will be used as tools in order to demonstrate that data visualization works as a functional analog to rhetoric. As mentioned above, the second goal of this thesis is to address the issue of people‟s lack of participation in the decision-making process of their government. Thus, in the sixth chapter, an attempt to purge sophistry of its bad

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5 name will be made with the intention of indicating the positive aspects that we can draw from the sophist‟s practice in order to democratize the Body Politic and make it politically active again. For that reason, Bruno Latour‟s analysis on this subject will be used. The seventh chapter of this thesis will attempt to answer the second research question by critically engaging with a data visualization that was created as part of an assignment conducted for the “Issue Mapping for Politics” course. Its analysis will reflect on the positive aspects of sophistry, thereby establishing the way that data visualizations can be used in order to help democratize the Body Politic. Moreover, the factors that are missing from society in order to achieve this goal will be located. These factors will be analyzed in the eighth chapter and finally the conclusions of this thesis will be drawn in the ninth chapter.

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1. Interpreting the World

We humans use our sensory organs to respond to stimuli and convert them into information in order to make sense of the surrounding environment. We connect to the world through our senses. They offer us experiences that we interpret in our mind so that we can form impressions about ourselves and about the entities that exist around us. But how do we interpret our world? Which mechanisms do we use? Our interpretation of the world is achieved by using language and images. The cognitive processes of hearing and sight are the main mechanisms that humans use to conceptually frame entities. Although it is not clear which out of the two is stronger, this thesis will focus on the use of images. An image is a mediation that connects us to the world and it is considered by many as the most influential way of comprehending our surrounding environment. This chapter will focus on examining the role of images in the process of interpreting our world. In order to address that issue, Vilem Flusser‟s insights on the matter will be evoked. Moreover, another goal of this chapter will be to answer the question of how images become so powerful and thus influential in our everyday lives. W.J.T. Mitchell‟s analysis of images and pictures will be used with the intention of approaching this matter. Countless analyses have been made regarding images, nevertheless Mitchell‟s focuses on the relations we build with them. This approach is preferred over others because it demonstrates how images mediate between people and shape our social life. Finally, a description of the contemporary world as it is perceived today will be discussed, again through the eyes of Flusser. This way an introduction to a specific worldview that perceives the world as a network will be provided. As mentioned in the introduction, this specific mindset will be criticized in the upcoming chapters.

Villem Flusser, in his work “Towards a philosophy of photography”, approaches the way we interpret the world from an interesting point of view. Humans cannot achieve pure immediacy with the world and thus images work as a “mediation” that enables us to understand it (Flusser 2000, 9). According to Flusser, “traditional images” (16), like archaic “cave paintings” (17), are the first kind of images that we created in order to represent and understand our world. We use our “imagination” in order to produce images that interpret the three dimensional materialistic objects which shape our environment (8). Imagination is necessary, both for the creation and comprehension of images, since it is the “ability to encode phenomena into two-dimensional

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7 symbols and to read these symbols” (ibid). The “significance” of an image can be found on its surface and therefore one must examine it in order to decode the symbols that are drawn on it (ibid). Images, though, are assemblages of “ambiguous symbols” that are open to interpretation, thus making their significance equivocal (ibid). One can make different correlations between the depicted symbols and generate alternative meanings. Thus, the world depicted by images is a “magical world” where “everything is repeated” and “everything participates in a significant context” (9). Flusser offers the following example: “in the historical world, sunrise is the cause of the cock‟s crowing; in the magical one, sunrise signifies crowing and crowing signifies sunrise” (ibid). This magical effect is caused due to the abstract nature of traditional images. The latter are abstractions of the world since the phenomena they “signify” are “reductions of the four dimensions of space and time to the two surface dimensions” (8). Hence, the ambiguity of images works as a hurdle when it comes to making the world comprehensible. Although they were supposed to work as “maps” that will help us to understand the entities around us, they are turned into “screens” (10). By not being able to “decode” these complicated images, we simply “project” them back to the world, transforming it into “an image of the state of things”, and turn our lives into “functions of the images we create”4 (ibid). Flusser names this reversed functionality of images “idolatry”5

(ibid).

The complexity of images had to be decoded in some way in order to interpret the world again and thus “linear writing” was invented (ibid). With the invention of writing, “historical consciousness and history” came along in order to oppose the “magical consciousness” (ibid). The “linear world of history” is different to the magical world of images because “nothing is repeated”, since time has a linear evolution, and “everything has causes and will have consequences” (9). As Flusser suggests, an example of the conflict between the magical and the historical world, or in other words the war between images and texts, can be found in the case of “Christianity, faithful to the text, against idolaters or pagans” (11). Writing works as a form of mediation between humans and their images, and assists us in decoding them (12). It “tears” the components of an image and “arranges them into lines” (10). This means that texts are abstractions of images which themselves are abstractions of the world (14). This is why Flusser

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Flusser offers the following contemporary example using technical images since this functionality is not just restricted to the traditional images: “The technical images currently all around us are in the process of magically reconstructing our ‘reality’ and turning it into a ‘global scenario’” (Flusser 2000, 10).

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Idolatry: the inability to read off ideas from the elements of the image, despite the ability to read these elements themselves; hence the worship of images (Flusser 2000, 83).

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8 stresses the following: “Texts do not signify the world; they signify the images they tear up. Hence, to decode texts means to discover the images signified by them” (11). In order for one to both write (code) and understand (decode) a text the ability of “conceptualization” is required (83). The issue, though, with “conceptual thought” is that since it “abstracts lines from surfaces” it is more abstract than imagination itself (11). This results in a higher level of abstraction, in comparison to the one images create, which does not make the world any more comprehensible than before. As Flusser stresses, “if it is the intention of writing to mediate between human beings and their images, it can also obscure images instead of representing them” (12). When this phenomenon occurs, texts become too complex and humans cannot reassemble the image that the text signified, i.e. they are unable to decode the text (ibid). Not being able to understand the texts, humans had an analogous reaction to the one they had when images were no longer comprehensible, that is they turned their lives into “a function of their text” (ibid). This time, instead of idolatry, humans fell into “textolatry”6

remaining faithful to their texts like in the cases of “Christianity and Marxism” (ibid).

The solution to this problem according to Flusser came with the invention of “technical images” (ibid). Technical images are images “produced by apparatuses” which themselves are “products of applied scientific texts” (13). According to Flusser‟s theory, traditional images vary from technical ones, both historically and ontologically (14). Historically, traditional images come before the discovery of texts, while technical images come after “very advanced texts”, i.e. scientific texts (ibid). Ontologically traditional images are the first layer of abstraction, because “they abstract from the concrete world”, then texts are the second layer of abstraction, since “they abstract from traditional images”, and finally technical images are the third layer of abstraction, since “they abstract from texts” (ibid). According to Flusser, technical images give us the impression that their meaning is “automatically reflected on their surface”, and thus we believe that they do not need explaining (ibid). They do not seem to carry “symbols”7 but rather “symptoms of the world”8

and that is what makes them give the illusion that they are depicting pure reality (15). This seemingly “non-symbolic” nature of technical images means they are seen as direct representations of the world (ibid). For Flusser, the encoding of these images is

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Textolatry: the inability to read off concepts from the written signs of a text, despite the ability to read these written signs; hence the worship of the text (Flusser 2000, 85).

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Symbol: A sign consciously or unconsciously agreed upon (Flusser 2000, 85).

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9 happening in the apparatus and, since it is a “black box”9_{, if we do not want to “remain illiterate”}

then our criticism towards the technical images must be turned towards the apparatus itself (16). Technical images, exactly because of their capability to seemingly depict reality, have conquered all aspects of our life. Academics, artists, politicians and analysts are using all sorts of technical images like photographs, videos and graphic charts, in order to make our world comprehensible. Flusser‟s theory shows how images mediate between humans and the world in order to make it comprehensible. His analysis, though, restricts images as a medium that only influences the relationship that individuals form with the world. This thesis intends to show that a specific kind of images, namely data visualizations, have the power to inform and convince people. This means that images do not only mediate between subject and object but also between subject and subject. In other words, they have the ability to mediate between people and thus shape our social life too. This statement raises the questions of what makes images and pictures such powerful entities, and how do they have such a great influence on us?

In this quest to understand the significance of images and pictures in our social lives W.J.T. Mitchell suggests that we should deal with them as if they are living beings. In this way he does not acknowledge them as mere objects that do not interact with individuals, but rather he elevates them to a position where they can form relationships with people in such a way that allows them to actively participate in the shaping of social life. He urges us to think of them as entities that have desires and needs of their own. From an initial analysis it is obvious to say that images are political agents but this approach is neither satisfactory nor complete for Mitchel and thus he takes a step further away from just asking “what pictures do” and wonders “what they want” (2005, 33). He makes a shift “from power to desire, from the model of the dominant power to be opposed, to the model of the subaltern to be interrogated or (better) to be invited to speak” (33). This question can be also formulated as “what does the picture lack?” (50) The answer can vary from picture to picture, yet one answer that fits for all of the pictures is that they are lacking attention from us and thus they demand our full focus; they want us to be frozen, staring at them constantly, and he names this “the medusa effect” (36). Pictures “draw” us towards them, and by drawing Mitchell refers to both meanings of the word, namely the “act of tracing, inscribing

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Black box is considered to be a device, which although one knows how it works in terms of input and output, he still does not know the internal functions that the machine performs.

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10 lines” and “the act of pulling, dragging, [and] attracting” (59). They evoke a type of passion that amazes you and provokes you to gaze at them, endlessly stunned. They exercise an “attracting force” (ibid) towards us and fire up our “desire to see” (39). Seeing is not a passive act but rather an active process because while one is staring at a picture, one dwells in it with the purpose of understanding the message that is being conveyed. This “scopic drive”, as Mitchel suggests, should not only be seen as an outcome of desire but also as an organizational diagram or a “model”, as he puts it, of “the visual process itself” (72). In other words, we are learning from pictures how to see in terms of what, where and how to look in order to understand the appearing image. This means that pictures influence our “visual cognition” which is a “fundamental social practice” when it comes to learning, understanding and knowing things (ibid).

Returning to our question of what pictures want, the answer lies in what they are lacking and thus what they demand from us. Hence, pictures want to be “loved”, leading them in some cases to become “jouissance”, they want to be “desired” or to acquire our “friendship” (74). However, those demands are correlated respectively with the “iconic practices” of “idol”, “iconoclasm”, “fetish” and “totem” (ibid). On the one hand, when a picture demands love then it is turned into an idol, while on the other hand when we want to destroy a picture, because we perceive it as an offending one, we perform an act of iconoclasm. When a picture calls for our ultimate desire and obsession then it turns into a fetish. The totem resembles the “friendship” or “kinship” of the “clan, tribe or family” and leads to “mimetic desire”, where the members of a group share a desire because some of them initially wanted something and then this desire mimetically spread to the other members too (75). The idol, fetish and totem are not to be perceived as distinct categories in order to describe objects but rather as relations formed with them. Furthermore, the three of them are “condensed world pictures”; they are ways of “worldmaking” and at the same time are able to “unmake” those worlds (196). And here lies the most important thing about images10, that their life is not a “private or individual matter” but rather that “it is a social life” (93). They have the ability to “form a social collective” close to our social life so that their worldmaking influences us to come up with “new arrangements and perceptions of the world” (ibid). One could even say that images permeate and constitute our social life. The continuous usage of images and pictures has led us to love and hate them, to

10_{It must be stressed that Mitchell does not talk about data visualization images. Nevertheless, as we will see in}

the upcoming chapters, we relate to data visualizations in the same ways (they are fetishized) and thus they also shape our social life.

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11 create and destroy them, to hyper- or undervalue them, to treat them as living entities and grant them a prominent position in our culture. Considering the position that they have, what kind of new perceptions of the world have they offered us? In other words, what is the contemporary image we have of the world? How do we perceive ourselves and the environment we live in?

Flusser addresses this question in his article “The city as Wave-Trough in the Image-Flood”. His particular view of the world is influenced by Cybernetics, system and information theories which envision the environment where humans live, namely the cities as networks of information. It is not the intention of this thesis to accept the idea that our society can be understood in terms of a network but rather to critique it. Thus, in this chapter Flusser‟s perception will be presented and later on, in the chapter about aesthetics and politics, the political significance of the idea that everything can be perceived as a network will be explained. According to him, the image of a city as a place where “individuals come together” must be considered out of date (Flusser 2005, 324). Communities and cities can no longer be described by the “physical space” they reside in but instead must be defined by the “relationships within them” (322). Therefore, the idea of urban space must be examined “topographically” and not “geographically” (ibid). The city is perceived as a “flection in a field”, or in other words, as a “well” in the grid of space which attracts and encloses the channels through which information “flows” (ibid). As Flusser describes, “in this image there are neither houses nor squares nor temples that are recognizable, rather only a network of wires, a confusion of cables” (326). The description of humanity could not remain uninfluenced by the idea of “new urbanism” (324). Hence, a human is no longer characterized as an individual but rather as a “dense scattering of parts” that make him calculable (ibid). The “Self” is depicted as a “knot” in a network of flowing information (ibid). The channels of this network are enmeshed together forming “human subjects” and thus “the Self (I) is an abstract, conceptual point around which concrete relations are wrapped” (325). Thus, our world is depicted by Flusser as a vast network of flowing information in which cities are dense attraction points and the individual is a knot in information flows. Moreover, he argues that this vast amount of information makes discourse and writing no longer sufficient when it comes to describing our world, since “swarms of bits are indescribable” (328). Nevertheless, these chaotic networks of information are calculable and thus, according to Flusser, they can be described

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12 through computational-technical images11 (ibid). The apparatus will be the computer which will perform the calculations and produce computational images, namely information visualizations, which, in his view, will make our world comprehensible again. At this point it must be stressed that the computational images that Flusser champions, are highly complex representations of the world which need to be analyzed and criticized. They are the outcome of many layers of mediation and thus cannot offer the transparency that Flusser suggests. Heidegger‟s critique, that we live in “the age of the world picture” (1977, 131) in terms of “the world conceived and grasped as a picture” (129) and not just a picture of the world, although it is not referring to computational images may as well be used against Flusser‟s vision. The shifting from words to images that we experience in our era is highly dangerous and by no means should we abandon discourse and writing. If we forsake discourse then we will not be in a position to analyze and criticize images.

Now that the influence that images have on our lives has been demonstrated it is time to proceed by showing that data visualizations are highly complex illustrations that need to be analyzed. This analysis will aid in exposing their relation with politics, and from there to connect them with the concept of rhetoric. In order to substantiate my argument, an introduction to information visualization must be provided in order for the reader to familiarize him/herself with this phenomenon. Thus, the next chapter will have two goals, namely to explain the process behind the construction of data visualizations, with the intention to show how complicated they are, and secondly to explain how they are related to the concept of the network. Having achieved those two goals, the focus of the third chapter will be to critically engage with the apparatus that creates those computational images, as Flusser himself suggested. This will be done in order to expose the dangers that lurk behind the use of computers and software as a means to encode data and translate it into a visualization.

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These type of image are mentioned here as computational-technical because they are the outcome of an apparatus. They are not the same kind of technical images as those mentioned in the first part of the chapter because Flusser used this term to describe images that come from an analogue apparatus and not a digital one like computers. To avoid any confusion, from now on these images will simply be called computational.

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2. Information Visualization

The previous chapter described the way we interpret the world through the use of images. Moreover, their significance was examined through the spectrum of the relations that are formed between them and humans. Finally, Flusser‟s specific type of worldview was introduced which suggests that the world is a dense network of flowing information and thus the illustration of those networks is what one needs in order to comprehend it. Although the word information is constructed by the words “in” and “form”, humans need to create forms on their own and to embed information in them so that they become comprehensible (Manovich 2008, 2). The advent of computers and software has not only made us realize that we use them in order to store, produce and process information, but also to design forms that encapsulate and represent it. Data visualizations are the representations produced by computer software, and they aid us in the process of making a complex dataset meaningful. The importance of those representations is that by producing formats that are meaningful to humans, they enable a faster and more efficient way of processing data which otherwise would be impossible. This chapter will focus on explaining how data visualization works in order to familiarize the reader with this phenomenon since it is central to this thesis. At the same time, it will demonstrate the idea of the network as a complex system of information that needs to be depicted in order for humans to understand their world better. In the upcoming chapters, the concept of network will appear again, both as the aggregation of statements, actions and opinions of groups around an issue (issue network), and as a theory behind a method of sociology (Actor Network Theory). As it will be explained, data visualizations are the maps produced in order for a network to be explored.

Data visualizations, though, are not the first illustrational format used with the purpose of organizing and depicting information. Trees can be considered as the ancestors of today‟s graphical depictions of networks. Their top down structure is correlated with the concept of “centralization” which itself is connected to the “concentration of power and authority in a central person or group of people” (Lima 2011, 43). Moreover, trees were limited in terms of forming interconnections between the entities that were illustrated, depriving them thus of the flexibility to depict more complex issues. Trees served their purpose for ages, but as the years progressed, and the problems that had to be solved became complicated, they turned out to be

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14 inadequate. Warren Weaver divided modern science into three eras according to the complexity of the problems that scientists had to encounter. The first era was characterized by “problems of simplicity” and concerned with the comprehension of the impact of “one variable over another” (45). The second one was characterized by “problems of disorganized complexity”, concerning issues with many variables whose influence on one another was considered “chaotic”, and the third era, characterized by “organized complexity”, faced problems concerning a multitude of interrelated variables (ibid). With the intention to encounter the politically conservative hierarchical organization of information into trees, as well as to create a more flexible way of illustrating matters that stemmed from modern complex problems, Deleuze and Guattari introduced the concept of „rhizome‟ (44). The latter is a decentralized system which allows the entities of a network to have interconnectivity with each other, taking into consideration the notions of “multiplicity and multilinearity” (ibid). Emanuel Lima suggests that hypertext, one of the structural cornerstones of the Internet where texts are interconnected through hyperlinks, is an example of the rhizome (ibid).

The advent of personal computers and later the invention of the Internet introduced people to the production of data. As the decades passed and we reached our era, where the popularity of both the Internet and computers has spread, the amount of data grew immensely. Computers are to be thought of as tools that shape our culture since they were the catalytic factor for the transition from the industrial to information society (Manovich 2008, 2). Moreover, this “pulsating ecosystem of data” (Lima 2011, 57) forced the information society to create “cultural practices” (Manovich 2008, 6) that will address its new needs of processing, analyzing and understanding this vast array of data. Data visualization, as a branch of the general field of information visualization, was born in order to satisfy this need. The Internet breaks down the natural spatial barriers and renders communication across the world an everyday habit, thus establishing the Web as a “social biosphere” (Lima 2011, 61) and the image of the world as a global network society. As stressed before, it is not the intention of this thesis to uncritically accept this worldview. In the chapter concerning politics it will be explained that the idea that everything can be reduced to a network results in an abstract depiction of society which leads to entities and issues being clouded. Moreover, it establishes a specific type of governance which does not openly control the individuals but rather secretly governs the relations that are formed between them. This world view reinforces the perception that most things in the world, our

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15 physiology (nervous system), our economy (trade markets), the urban structure, our society, the ecosystem, and the Internet can be understood as a complex network. The quantification of these networks into data creates the false belief that we are calculable, just like Flusser suggested, and elevates the analysis of this information into an important goal. This is why the depiction of the information that flows within these networks into visualizations ostensibly offers the promise of representing and understanding our society better.

Data visualization is based on two main principles namely reduction and spatialization12. “Reduction” is the deployment of “graphical primitives13_{” in order to represent objects and}

“reveal patterns” of their relations (Manovich 2010, 5). The use of the word objects does not refer to corporeal bodies but rather to abstract entities within a dataset. The usage of design elements aids in the comprehension of the visualization by the audience. By following the practice of reduction we are led into “extreme schematization” by excluding a large percentage of the specificities of the object, hoping that patterns will emerge (ibid). Spatialization on the other hand is the usage of “spatial variables14_{” with the intention of highlighting important}

“differences” that stem from the data set and exposing “patterns and correlations” (7). With the usage of data visualizations, scientists try to answer questions concerning society by examining networks of information. Nevertheless, the decoding of the complexity which they are endowed with, and its depiction into a visualization is a difficult issue which demands the following steps: 1)„Start with a question‟ (Lima 2011, 82) 2)„Look for relevancy‟ (ibid) 3)„Enable multivariable analysis‟ (83) 4)„Embrace time‟ (84) 5)„Enrich your vocabulary‟ (86) 6)„Expose grouping‟ (88) 7)„Maximize Scaling‟ (91) and finally 8)„Manage intricacy‟ (92). The first step refers to the forming of an inquiry that will help you formulate the necessary methodology in order to properly exploit your dataset. In some cases a sequence of secondary research questions can help the researcher to delineate the original one. Looking for relevancy is the second step and it can be divided into two phases. The first one refers to choosing the relevant data out of a dataset in order to answer the research question better and the second phase is to choose the correct type of visualization that will best communicate the findings of the research (83). The third step prompts the researcher to add as many variables as possible in the analysis and depiction of the network in order to gain more insights and make it more transparent (83). The fourth step then urges the

12_{Spatialization is my unofficial-suggested term which describes the usage of spatial variables.} 13

Graphical primitives: points, straight lines, curves, geometric shapes.

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16 researcher to include the time factor in the analysis since networks are dynamic systems that change over time (86). As mentioned before, data visualizations use graphical primitives like edges and nodes in order to depict a network. The fifth step suggests the use of other visual properties like color, color transparency, shape and size in order to enrich the depiction with more variables and form more connections between the actors (ibid). Exposing the groups of actors is the next step and it can be achieved with the correct use of the space of the visualization. With the proper spatial arrangement the clusterization of the actors can emerge along with their differences (88). The seventh step consists of three different methods of analysis. The first one is called “macro view (pattern)” and concerns a macroscopic analysis of the issue, focusing the attention both on those actors that form clusters amongst them as well as on those that stand alone and marginalized (91). The second one is called “relationship view (connectivity)” and is a detailed analysis of the connections (links) between the actors and not such a thorough one of the nodes themselves (92). The third one is called “micro view (individual nodes)” and focuses on the depiction of the qualitative characteristics of the actors, i.e. the nodes (ibid). All three methods do not need to be deployed in order for a visualization to be considered successful. The critical factor is for the research question to be answered. Yet if a data visualization uses all three methods it will also give insights into other queries that were not addressed in the first place. Nevertheless, it is highly important for the visualization to be comprehensible to the audience and this brings us to the final step which dictates the correct combination of the previous three views in order for it to succeed in its purpose and to communicate the necessary information (ibid). Following the eight steps described above, one can make a successful data visualization that will help a researcher to expose the characteristics of a problem by perceiving it and analyzing it as a network.

Returning to Flusser‟s argument, he said that all we need are those calculable images and we can do away with discourse. Producing this type of image is a highly complicated process that needs a sequence of steps, as described above. Every step of the process works as an intermediation between the world and the human. Information will be altered while being transferred from the world into data and from data into a visualization. Data visualizations make datasets transparent and thus comprehensible, but at the same time they obfuscate the steps that were analyzed above and thus the decisions made during their construction. This process works in a similar way as

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17 software obfuscates hardware and code, but at the same time it makes it more transparent in the sense that it translates incomprehensible code into familiar forms. The demonstration of this procedure will be done in the next chapter by evoking Wendy Chun‟s analysis of this issue. This way a critical approach to the apparatus that produces data visualizations will be developed, as Flusser urged us to do.

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3. Software as a Functional Analog to Ideology

In the previous chapter data visualizations were introduced and their relation with the concept of network was analyzed. Moreover, the procedure behind their creation was described and it was explained that in order to produce a visualization one must follow specific steps that will help to manipulate a dataset and depict it in an understandable form. As will be explained, while the outcome of the visualization aids us to make a dataset comprehensible, at the same time it obfuscates the steps of its process making. Thus, the focus of this chapter will be to critically engage with the apparatus that produces data visualizations, namely the computer and its software, and to explain how and why the process of obfuscation is happening. In order to achieve this goal, this chapter will draw on Wendy Chun‟s insights into software, visuality and control.

Chun, in her article “On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge” argues that software is a “functional analog to ideology” (2005, 43). Regarding ideology, she uses Luis Althusser‟s definition as “a „representation‟ of the imaginary relation of individuals to their real conditions of existence” (1971, 162). She draws her conclusion based on the concepts of „obfuscation‟ (Chun 2005, 43), and „causal pleasure‟ (38). The idea of obfuscation stems from the way computers are built. Initially there is hardware which consists of circuits and transistors. The processes that occur within the hardware are translated into binary code, machine code, program languages, higher program languages and finally to Graphical User Interfaces (GUI). Hence, the final image of the computer is constructed through different types of mediation; different types of “layers” (28). Every layer that is added creates a “data abstraction” (37), which means that programming is not only hiding the machine but also hiding information. Thus, every layer of extra mediation obfuscates the real nature of computers, which is circuits and raw materials, and represents it as „desktops‟ and „folders‟. Thus, it is not by chance that Wendy Chun names this structure “onionlike” (28).

Obfuscation is happening in favor of causal pleasure. Programming can cause a great feeling of “power and control” (39). This feeling stems from the relationship of cause and effect that programming languages offer (ibid). One can code and see the results of his work appear executed on the screen. This feeling-power is not solely enjoyed by the programmers but also by

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19 the users. Graphical User Interface gives users the feeling of “direct manipulation” (40) and thus a sense of “transparency” (43). It must be stressed that this manipulation is not direct and that this feeling, which is caused due to obfuscation, is notional. Chun evokes Slavoj Zizek who says that ideology exists in “one‟s actions rather than in one‟s beliefs” (44). Thus, ideology exists within what one does and not within what one knows, just like in the case of „desktops‟ and „folders‟. Users know that those tools are not real but they still choose to act as if they are (43). The notion of causality makes sure that users will “suspend their disbelief” that the tools are not real (41).

In this imaginary relationship, to speak in Althusser‟s words, is where Wendy Chun finds the analogy between software and ideology. She argues that “software and ideology fit each other perfectly because both try to map the material effects of the immaterial and to posit the immaterial through visible cues” (44). By that she means that they both formally function in the same way. For example, the ideology of Capitalism produces consumers and fetishizes the commodity form by obfuscating their pure material nature. When a table becomes a commodity it ceases to be mere wood (Mitchell 2005, 111). By fetishizing the table as a commodity we get the causal pleasure of building an uncomplicated relationship with it which obfuscates the complex and oppressive relations of labor that are occurring during its construction. In the same way “software produces users” and fetishizes interactivity and control (causal pleasure) by obfuscating code and hardware (Chun 2005, 43). With the attempt to extend this procedure, data visualizations produce images of the world and fetishize immediacy by obfuscating both information about the entities that are analyzed (extreme schematization) and the work of mediation, i.e. the steps that one must take in order to produce a visualization. The world feels abstract and thus we need these visualizations in order to connect ourselves to it. This fetishization renders images in general, not only data visualizations, as a dominant medium that helps us connect with– and understand our world, resulting this way into what Mitchell (2005, 5) names “pictorial turn”, i.e. the shifting from words to images when it comes to expressing ourselves. “New media have made communication seem more transparent, immediate, and rational than before, at the same time they have enmeshed us in labyrinths of new images, objects, tribal entities and ritual practices” (26). The desire for transparency is related to fetishization. Fetish offers us the feeling of an immediate and uncomplicated relationship with an

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20 “object” of desire; while in many cases this relationship is formed with a “part-object” like a part of the human body, for example (Laplanche and Pontalis 1973, 301).

Nevertheless, by playfully altering Galloway‟s words, “language” must not “be overlooked” in favor of images (Galloway 2006, 320). We need new discourse in order to critically position ourselves towards data visualizations and to analyze them since they are far from transparent. Data visualizations have a similar „onion like‟ structure like software. They are a sequence of steps during which data are being manipulated through manual or statistical methods and forced into „extreme schematization‟ before they become a final image. They are the outcome of multiple mediations between the world and humans. Every layer of extra mediation that we add in order to interpret our world causes obfuscation by adding another abstraction, while at the same time allows for new forms and senses of transparency to emerge. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that genuine immediacy is not possible and this is the reason why humans need mediators in order to comprehend their world. Visualizations offer us causal pleasure and help us to establish better connections. Hence, mediation is necessary but it must be stressed that the choice of what information is to be obfuscated has political significance since it will alter the meaning and potential of a visualization. Thus, the purpose of the next chapter is to demonstrate how images of the world have political importance; how aesthetics in general and thus data visualizations contribute to the maintenance of the distribution of power within a society.

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4. Aesthetics, Data Visualization and Governance

The previous chapter explained the reason behind the obfuscation of information during the construction of a data visualization, namely causal pleasure. Moreover, it was stressed that the choice of which information is to be obfuscated has political significance. Hence, the focus of this chapter will be to demonstrate the connection that data visualizations have with politics. The intention behind this is to explore the influence that those visual artifacts have on our conception of political issues. Instead of diving straight into the matter, it is preferable to explain the connection that aesthetics has with politics and then to narrow down the focus to visualizations, which are part of this broader concept. Aesthetics stems from the Greek word „aesthesis‟ which has a double meaning, namely senses and perception. Aesthetics is not something politically innocent and this is why Warren Sack beautifully stresses the following: “When you look at artistic projects that map out and visualize information, do not worry so much about whether they are pretty, beautiful, friendly or easy to use [...] I ask that we shift our attention away from visual aesthetics and focus, instead, on an aesthetics of governance” (2011, 132). But how exactly are aesthetics and governance tied together?

In a society there are people who rule over others because they fulfill certain roles that other people do not. The state, whose purpose it is to create and sustain this social order is named the “police order” by Jacques Ranciere (2009, 10). Its main goal is to police the population and thus to control what is allowed to be “seen” and to be “said” (Ranciere 2013, 8). This brings us to the major idea of Ranciere which is the “distribution of the sensible” (2005, 14). This concept represents the way in which the power, within a society, is distributed. Hence, as he describes it, some are entitled to rule over others just because they fulfill the roles of the “older, the richer and the wiser” (Ranciere 2009, 10). These roles not only define who will rule over the other, but also the degree of participation one can have in forming the society. Here he evokes the Platonic example in which the artisan has no other place to be except from work. “Since he has no place to be elsewhere, he has no capacity to understand the relation between places that make up a community, which means that he has no political intelligence” (4). Thus, the „distribution of the sensible‟ sets the rules of what can be „seen‟ or „said‟ in terms of what one can think, imagine and do; it determines the “distribution of the possible and of the impossible” within a society

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22 (Ranciere 2005, 23). It defines the image people have of their society, in terms of how they perceive it, and thus also defines to what extent they can intervene and change it. Furthermore, the notion of distribution encapsulates the idea that some people will be excluded from the shaping of this image. These people are named “the part without part” (Ranciere 2009, 10). For Ranciere, the „police order‟, the state and the people in power are considered the same and they are those who define the „distribution of the sensible‟. Hence, they are those who determine the image-perception people are allowed to have of their society. Politics is essential for Ranciere since it is up for those „without a part‟ to oppose the predetermined order and redistribute the sensible in new aesthetic forms that have been denied. This is exactly the reason why aesthetics is so crucial to politics, because it plays a major role in shaping the image of a society. Politics can be found in the realm of aesthetics and since data visualizations are aesthetic representations of society, they are also bound to politics and governance. It is not that visualizations are the only way we imagine and interpret the world but their use is increasing in our era. Let us now identify the reason behind this increase and connect it with governance.

Warren Sack, in his article “Aesthetics of Information Visualization”, traces the “art of governance” back to political science and Cybernetics but he stresses the fact that in the modern world it is not only a matter of “the perception of and representation of things, or objects, but rather the interpretation, organization, articulation and representation of subjects, specifically the representation of people and things woven together” (Sack 2011, 134). What he means is that the „art of governance‟ has shifted its focus from the nodes to the edges. It has shifted its attention from controlling things to governing the relations between things and people. Thus, it was more about controlling the networks that are created. This was the transformation from the “disciplinary societies” to “societies of control”15

, as Gilles Deleuze explains in his work “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (1992, 4). According to Sack, the creation of specific technologies, which kept records, along with the invention of statistics, led to what Michel Foucault called „governmentality‟ (Sack 2011, 143). Foucault defines the term as “the ensemble formed by institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, calculations, and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific, albeit very complex, power that has the population as its target,

15

Disciplinary societies exercised their power by controlling institutions like schools, barracks, factories, hospitals and prisons (Deleuze 1992, 3). In the case of factories, the intention was to organize and control the means of production (ibid). On the other hand, instead of owning the means of production, societies of control exercise their power by regulating production through their control of the “operation of the market” (6). Thus, instead of controlling the factories, which are the nodes in the network of production, they controlled their relations through the markets, which are the edges of the network.

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23 political economy as its major form of knowledge, and apparatuses of security as its essential technical instrument” (Foucault 2009, 144). It is at that point that the idea that data reflect our world and thus can enable control was born. Hence, the one who controls the data and the flow of information in general controls society. Controlling what one can see means that you control what one can say. This led to a frenzy of technical innovations which enabled the production and accumulation of data. The development of computers and software enabled governments and businesses to store, organize and analyze data sets in ways that were previously unimaginable. Moreover, the advent of the personal computer invited more and more people to join this practice. A dataset on its own, though, is not meaningful and thus visual representations were needed in order to make it comprehensible. This is where data visualization entered the scene, to fill this gap. Today‟s complex „texts‟ that ostensibly describe our world are vast bodies of data and thus the computational images that help us make them comprehensible are data visualizations.

As our means of researching and interpreting the world are changing, so does our perception of it. As Bruno Latour stressed, “change the instruments, and you will change the entire social theory that goes with them” (2010, 155). This fact, though, has a grave impact on society. We believe that the truth about our society‟s behavior is encrypted within chaotic datasets. We struggle to make sense of our “digital traces” (158). We struggle to visualize the networks of information; to figure out the connections; to make the patterns emerge. In this process, dangers lie regarding the quality of the datasets and software the researchers are using. If a dataset is biased, in terms of being incomplete, or the software is limited, in terms of the actions that its tools allow the researcher to perform, then what control do we have over the knowledge that will come out of the research? Will this knowledge be beneficial for our society? Knowledge and power are related in the sense that the former produces an image of the world which will distribute the sensible in a specific way. The computational images, through their epistemology, will affect ontology. Data visualizations with their new revelations will shape our world in their image which will turn the world itself, to reflect back on Heidegger‟s critique, into a flat and phenomenologically depthless image.

The issue of the quality of knowledge can be addressed through the concept of openness but this is a significant discussion that will be explored in the upcoming chapters. Nevertheless, we are so occupied by the process of creating data visualizations that we do not realize what kind

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24 of political dangers lurk within those aesthetic representations. As mentioned before, those computational images have political significance. They are the final layer of a sequence of mediations that help us to comprehend the world. Each time a layer is added another abstraction is enforced. Each time another mediation intervenes between the world and the human, obfuscation is added up. It is true that we cannot live without abstractions and intermediations since it is the only way we can make sense of our world. There is no such thing as pure immediacy. Nevertheless, those abstractions leave out information, and the kind of information that is left out is the decision of a person or a group. Since data visualizations are created by people, they convey their ideologies; their perception-image of the world. They are the aesthetic representation of the world people have in mind which means that they represent a specific distribution of the sensible. Thus, each time an audience interacts with a visualization they confront a political message. This message is not openly stated but entangled within the plethora of mediations that are needed for the production of the visualization. The following example will help to make the above argumentation more concrete.

Back in 2009 the Obama administration proposed a healthcare reform that caused a clash between the Republican and the Democratic parties. The former argued that the reform plan was too complex and too bureaucratic and thus would not lower health care costs, while the latter accused the Republicans of not offering any plan at all. John Andrew Boehner, a member of the Republican Party, issued a visualization titled “Organizational Chart of the House Democrats‟ Health Plan” (Figure 1).

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Figure 1. The Republicans‟ visualization of the healthcare reform (voices.washingtonpost.com)

Although the ostensible purpose of a visualization is to make an issue more transparent, this one appeared complicated and chaotic. Instead of illuminating the reform it obfuscated it even more. The entities of the visualization are depicted with different types of shapes and fonts that do not assist with classifying the nodes into categories with similar characteristics. Moreover, the choice of where to place the nodes on the surfaces of the visualization resulted in edges, i.e. connections that are formed between the nodes, to overlap each other, making them this way hard to follow. The chart did not lie, in terms of presenting fake data, but the decisions that the designer took made it extremely difficult to read and understand it. It was intentionally created this way in order to enhance the Republicans‟ argument. It was so convincing that even protesters used this image when demonstrating against the reform. It literally became a banner against the healthcare plan. The Democrats issued one of their own, as a response, accusing the Republicans of not

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26 having any plan at all (Figure 2). Their visualization was a network of meaningless shapes containing question marks that were pointlessly connected.

Figure 2. The Democrats‟ response (voices.washingtonpost.com)

Robert Palmer, a graphic designer, created his own version of the healthcare graph by using the same data taken from the Republicans‟ visualization and rearranging them in such a way that it became clearer and friendlier to the eye (Figure 3). The entities were classified by colors and positioned on the surface of the visualization in a way that the connections between them were easier to see. In his accompanying post on flickr.com he wrote “By releasing your chart, instead of meaningfully educating the public, you willfully obfuscated an already complicated proposal […] So, to try and do my duty both to the country and to information design […] I have taken it upon myself to untangle your delightful chart” (Palmer 2009). Palmer, by choosing a different set of obfuscations, produced a visualization that appeared less complicated and bureaucratic than the Republicans‟. Although the dataset is the same, the choices made during the production

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27 of a visualization resulted in a different depiction of the issue and thus a different political message.

Figure 3: Robert Palmer‟s response to the Republicans‟ visualization of the healthcare reform (flickr.com)

It is really interesting to see how a visualization has the power to produce an image of an issue that will influence people‟s view on a political matter. To reflect back on Ranciere‟s words, people could see that the healthcare reform was a mess and say that they do not want it. This illustration worked as an enhancement of the Republicans‟ argumentation arsenal against the reform. Moreover, it is intriguing to see how it initiated a political discourse that was based on visualizations. One could even say that it was a visual debate. Visualizations are not innocent

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28 since they convey political statements and ideologies. They are used as tools to inform and convince an audience. This fact raises a question, which – as was mentioned in the introduction – is the main focus of this thesis: To what extent can we perceive data visualizations as a

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5. Data Visualization as a Functional Analog to Rhetoric

The focus of the previous chapter was to establish the connection between data visualizations and politics. It was made clear that data visualizations convey political convictions that are entangled within the layers of mediation that are required for its production. They have the capability to establish a specific „distribution of the sensible‟ and to strengthen arguments. This way the audience is presented with something to see which will, to a certain degree, define what they will say. Thus, visualizations can be used as tools of both informing and convincing people about the issues at stake. They seem to actively participate in political discourse and one must wonder whether they work as functional analogs to rhetoric. Hence, the focus of this chapter is to examine this connection. In order to do so, an introduction to rhetoric must be provided, with the intention to place this concept within a historical and political frame. The invention of rhetoric, i.e. “the principles of training communicators-those who seek to persuade or inform” (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006), came along with democracy and both concepts are tied together. Moreover, it is interesting to see from a historical perspective how the Peloponnesian war brought hardships to the Athenian people, leading this way to the downfall of rhetoric and democracy. Following, the techniques used in rhetoric will be introduced with the intention to connect them, later on in this chapter, to those of data visualizations. The connection between the latter and rhetoric will not only be made by comparing technical features but also theoretically by finding correlations between their definitions and examining whether data visualizations as images perform visual rhetoric.

The gift of eloquence comes naturally for some people and this was especially appreciated in ancient Greece. Homer considered the articulation of a good speech a divine gift and the ideal hero had to stand out both in the agora during the assembly of demos and in war “μύθφν ηε ρηηήρ έμεναι πρηκηήρα ηε έργφν” (Homer 1902, I443). During the middle of the 5th

century B.C., the Greek cities defended with spectacular victories the grave danger of the Persian war campaigns. The citizens, regardless of their social class, were feeling confident about repelling the enemy, and the polity of democracy, grounded on citizens‟ patriotism, was strengthened and solidified. It was time for them to enjoy the financial, political and intellectual flourishing of their city. The democratic polity that was established offered citizens equality in the right of

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30 speech (ιζηγορία) and prompted them to use their natural talent of eloquence. The systematic rhetoric which is founded on the knowledge of rules (episteme) and practice made its appearance in the Greek colonies of Sicily where, after 446 B.C., the tyrannical polity (ησραννίδες) fell and democracy prevailed. A plethora of civil trials began with the intention of giving back the fortunes of democratic citizens that had been illegally taken during the tyranny, which led to the birth of „forensic rhetoric‟. Rhetoric became a tool of democracy and from thereafter it was bound to be integral to people‟s freedom of speech.

Athens, from the middle of the 5th century B.C. became the city in which the rhetorical art reached its acme. The important issues of the city were solved in the assembly of the demos where the power of speech became very decisive for one to persuade his fellow citizens about the value of his claims. Besides the political power and public involvement, the citizen, in his private life, was also interested in defending his rights in the courts. Back then it was obligatory to represent yourself, since there were no lawyers, and in order for one to win a trial one had to have eloquence. Thus, it was time for the naturally gifted rhetors to be replaced by educated ones who were good users of language and its expressive means, and were able to articulate an oration by following a structure and architecture of speech which varies according to the circumstances. The role of the teacher, who teaches the ways one must use speech in order to prevail in society and politics, is being played, by the „sophists‟. The latter were controversial figures who were often accused, by philosophers like Socrates, of abandoning their quest for virtue and truth. On the contrary, the quest of knowledge for them, as described by Plato, is done with the intention of obtaining power and political influence. They are depicted using rhetoric as a political means of empowerment without their argumentation necessarily being restricted by ethical boundaries.

Athens, which during Pericles‟ era was the intellectual, cultural and political center of Greece, embraces the movement of sophists. Significant sophists like Protagoras, Prodicus and the great teacher of rhetoric Gorgias all settled in the city. The latter studied „kairos‟, namely the importance of the political, social and psychological circumstances that one will take into consideration in order to formulate a more successful rhetorical speech. The sophists disputed with Socrates about issues of governance of the city state and society, and on political and social ethics. The next chapter will be dedicated to analyzing a famous dialogue between the sophists and Socrates with the intention of showing that they were not the deceitful and canny people that Plato liked to describe them as. There we will see that there are aspects of sophistry that are

On Data Visualization: Rhetoric and the Revival of the Body Politic