Kirjahaku

How data visualization can be harnessed as a critical design practice as shown through three sociopolitical case studiesVisualization is a form of design practice that deploys representational processes of enormous rhetorical and analytical power. What is often left out of the picture is the network of processes which it assembles and the nonvisual effects it produces. Building upon the arguments of Latour, Deleuze and Guattari, author Patricio D vila applies an assemblage framework to three case studies offering distinct instances of critical visualization practices: Liquid Traces (2014), from Forensic Architecture; Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (2013-), from the San Francisco Tenants Union; and In the Air, Tonight (2013-16), from the Public Visualization Lab/Studio. D vila underscores an ethics of visualization that refocuses criticality on the potential of design to act modestly by revealing its own construction.Patricio D vila is a designer, artist, researcher and educator. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Arts in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design, at York University.

Diagrams of Power collects contemporary artworks and projects that use data, diagrams, maps and visualizations as ways of challenging dominant narratives and supporting the resilience of marginalized communities.The artists and designers featured critique conventionalized and established truths that obscure important histories or perpetuate oppressive regimes; they also contribute to positive social change by engaging communities and providing alternative strategies for storytelling, communication and organizing. Historical and contemporary uses of data and visualization in colonization, surveillance and management are problematized through critical interventions that use performance, embodiment and counternarratives. The publication is the product of an exhibition organized by Onsite Gallery at OCAD University, Toronto, in 2018.Diagrams of Power features works by artists, designers, cartographers, historians and collectives including Julie Mehretu, Iconoclasistas, Burak Arikan, Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, Bureau d'Etudes, Ogimaa Mikana, Department of Unusual Certainties, Josh Begley, Lize Mogel, Philippe Rekacewicz, Margaret Pearce, Joshua Akers, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Vincent Brown and others.