Contemporary Visualization Research Articles

Exploring contemporary visualization of traditional Chinese arts: Relationship between calligraphy elements and visual communication effects

This study aims to explore the relationships between calligraphy elements, visual communication effects and cultural significance in the context of contemporary visualization of traditional Chinese arts. Thematic analysis was conducted on interview responses to uncover insights into the complex dynamics at play. In-depth interviews with professionals and scholars provided firsthand perspectives on integrating calligraphy elements in visual communication, the effects of visual communication on audience perceptions and the role of cultural heritage in design practice. Comparative analysis with existing literature further enriched the understanding of the variables’ relationships and their implications for theory and practice. The findings reveal intricate relationships between calligraphy elements, visual communication effects, and cultural significance. Calligraphy elements enhance visual communication by imbuing design materials with cultural depth, authenticity and emotional resonance. Visual communication influences audience perceptions of cultural significance, shaping their attitudes and behaviors towards cultural artifacts and representations. Furthermore, cultural heritage informs design practice by providing a rich source of inspiration and meaning, guiding the creation of culturally resonant and effective communication materials. This research contributes to theoretical advancements in visual communication, cultural studies and design theory by uncovering insights into the relationships between calligraphy elements, visual communication effects, and cultural significance. The practical implications for professionals in design, marketing and cultural heritage preservation include providing practical guidance for creating culturally resonant communication materials and informing policies and initiatives that support the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage.

Blending Conventional Learning Approach with Contemporary Visualization Technologies: Prerequisite Toward Evidence-Based Surface Anatomy.

Proficiency in surface anatomy knowledge plays a pivotal role in fostering complication-free and efficacious clinical practice across a wide spectrum of healthcare specialties. This comprehensive understanding and adept utilization of surface anatomy principles serve as the linchpin for deciphering normal anatomical structures within medical imaging and the aptitude to articulate the topographical attributes, visual characteristics, and interrelations of palpable anatomical entities. Despite the advent of advanced direct visualization techniques, such as ultrasound guidance, which assist in interventional procedures, clinicians have not relinquished the indispensable requirement for pertinent surface anatomy knowledge to ensure the successful and secure execution of procedures. Regrettably, evidence-based surface anatomy remains an underemphasized facet in the pedagogy of anatomical sciences. The current narrative review underscores the various methodologies employed in imparting surface anatomy education to students. However, it is noteworthy that no singular, unequivocal best practice has emerged for the teaching and acquisition of surface anatomy knowledge. Therefore, as custodians of anatomical education, there is a pressing need to innovate and amalgamate contemporary pedagogical approaches with state-of-the-art technologies to furnish students with evidence-based surface anatomy insights, thereby enhancing comprehension, retention, and the lasting utility of this essential domain of medical knowledge.

Structural analysis and damage assessment of a fortified church – A case study: The Evangelical Church of Apos, Sibiu County

Globally, there is a wide range of monuments that require conservation and restoration work in order to maintain their values as a whole, both from the aesthetic and historical perspective and to ensure their preservation for future generations. The aim of this paper is to showcase the historical development of the fortified church structure in Apoș, in addition to examining the reasons for its structural damage and exploring possible ways to strengthen the entire church – tower complex. The Evangelical Church is located in the village of Apoș, in the central region of Transylvania, along the Hârtibaciu Valley. This region is of national importance, being part of the Hârtibaciu Plateau and also within the Natura 2000 sites. The church complex consists of the church itself, which is also listed in the Historical Monuments List with the code SB-II-a-B-12313, the bell tower and the clergy house. However, this paper concerns only the church and the tower. The evolution of the church spans over several centuries, during which its structure underwent reconfigurations, consolidation works, but also invasive interventions with incompatible materials that further altered the entire structure and its behaviour. Thus, from the point of view of interventions, they were carried out progressively, the most extensive works being the replacement of the nave ceiling with cylindrical vaults and the replacement of the choir ceiling with a semispherical vault, as well as the consolidation works of the building in the 20th century. The investigation of the Evangelical Church was carried out, first of all, by conducting an on-site investigation, followed by using traditional survey methods in order to identify the structure failures. Additionally, contemporary visualization methods, such as three-dimensional laser scanning, were utilized to gather information on dimensions, heights and ornament details. Through these steps, a survey was obtained that includes accurate data on the church complex. Following these stages, the main degradations identified were a series of cracks caused by differential settlements and the lack of cooperation between structural elements, mechanical damage caused by the detachment of the buttresses from the walls and due to the sliding of the land towards the south, after the demolition of the fortifications. Additionally, two types of brickwork damage were identified: pronounced crack indicating its displacement, contributed by seismic activity and smaller but numerous cracks indicating the disintegration of the brickwork caused by differential settlements combined with prolonged moisture. Besides these, human factors and execution defects were identified, as well as physicochemical degradations with internal causes, such as composition defects or crystal cohesion defects. The repair and consolidation works, including seismic safety measures, have proposed technologies based on the principles of reversibility and preservation of the church’s authenticity. Thus, the main interventions aim to strengthen the structural walls, arches and vaults, eliminate the source of humidity causing the erosion of the masonry through capillary water infiltration, strengthen the floors, roof structure and openings, as well as the interior elements, such as balconies and stairs.

K* Distribution: Evaluating the Latent Space of Deep Neural Networks Using Local Neighborhood Analysis.

Most examinations of neural networks' learned latent spaces typically employ dimensionality reduction techniques such as t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) or uniform manifold approximation and projection (UMAP). These methods distort the local neighborhood in the visualization, making it hard to distinguish the structure of a subset of samples in the latent space. In response to this challenge, we introduce the k* distribution and its corresponding visualization technique. This method uses local neighborhood analysis to guarantee the preservation of the structure of sample distributions for individual classes within the subset of the learned latent space. This facilitates easy comparison of different k* distributions, enabling analysis of how various classes are processed by the same neural network. Our study reveals three distinct distributions of samples within the learned latent space subset: 1) fractured; 2) overlapped; and 3) clustered, providing a more profound understanding of the existing contemporary visualizations. Experiments show that the distribution of samples within the network's learned latent space significantly varies depending on the class. Furthermore, we illustrate that our analysis can be applied to explore the latent space of diverse neural network architectures, various layers within neural networks, transformations applied to input samples, and the distribution of training and testing data for neural networks. Thus, the k* distribution should aid in visualizing the structure inside neural networks and further foster their understanding.

Rosa Bonheur the Amazon? Equestrianism, female masculinity, and The Horse Fair (1852–1855)

In 1853, Rosa Bonheur first exhibited what would become her most widely celebrated work: The Horse Fair. Although the work’s modern setting and animal-focused subject matter do not obviously characterize it as an instance of classical reception, the artist claimed that it was inspired by the Parthenon frieze. A significant amount of feminist and queer scholarship has been dedicated to Rosa Bonheur’s life, career, and art practices, all of which reveal the complex ways in which the artist negotiated the gender norms of 19th-century France. These ranged from her decision never to marry, instead living in households with two women, to her officially sanctioned practice of cross-dressing when conducting art studies in public. In view of all these things, one of the most remarkable elements of The Horse Fair is the very probable inclusion of the artist’s self-portrait, clad in masculine clothing and riding with legs astride her mount. Taking seriously Bonheur’s Parthenonian quotation, how should her self-portrait within the male-dominated arena of the horse market be understood? The author argues that, by classical analogy, Bonheur may be regarded as a gender-bending Amazon of a sort that was radically distinct from the scores of so-called “amazones” promenading about Paris. A comparative consideration of contemporary visualizations of the Amazonian rider trope suggests that Bonheur appropriates and, as it were, refashions this modish, gendered imagery to make a bold statement of women’s equality with men.

On the longevity of visual colonial stereotyping and its influence on twenty-first-century societal and identity debates

This paper engages with current societal identity debates related to select postcolonial southern African circles, whose European origins can partially be traced back to the creation of the colonial photography genre. The contemporary visualisation of non-white Africans in the European landscape is linked to a genre that was born in the times of High Imperialism. As a child of its time, colonial photography laid the foundation for both racist and racial depiction patterns of certain African peoples and what their supposed traits and looks were from the coloniser’s point of view, thereby creating seeing patterns. Until today, social debates and political movements are linked to the visualisation of non-white peoples. This project is about the historical muting of sub-Saharan Africa through stereotypical images and its links to the shaping and maintenance of postcolonial identity debates concerning racialised visualisation traditions in Europe. This repetitive visual blinding is another form of colonial aggression by constantly perpetuating certain image(rie)s and thereby facilitating colonial mentalities. Examples presented below show how far-reaching the colonial photographic stereotypes are by not limiting the scope of seeing traditions to photographs. Instead, other areas of visible everyday spaces like street names, monuments, statues, lawsuits or book covers are included.

CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTS DEALING with the PHENOMENON of MIGRATION and THEIR ROLE in RAISING UP REFUGEES' ISSUES

CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTS DEALING with the PHENOMENON of MIGRATION and THEIR ROLE in RAISING UP REFUGEES' ISSUES

Image communication and contemporary visualisation in the popularisation of archaeology

In modern society where images begin to play a dominant role in the cognitive process, the use of visualisation as a carrier of information about archaeological research becomes more and more important. The main aim of this article is to consider visualisation as a method of education and protection of cultural heritage, as well as the role of image communication in popularising archaeology. These issues will be subject to a critical discussion in terms of advantages, possibilities and challenges resulting from the use of 3D reconstruction of prehistoric objects in museology, the Internet and popular science publications. In order to understand the idea of image communication in popularising the archaeological heritage better, an example of visualisations comprising a graphic part of museum exhibitions will be presented.

Transferring Historical Iconography into a Contemporary Visual Perspective. Case Study: Adamclisi Monument

It's known that any form of communication uses signs. Communication through signs, the imagistic dimension of artistic creation, has been the basis of all periods of cultural development of humanity. Understanding these periods in human history has been a constant concern for historians, art historians and archaeologists. For example, the translation (the decoding) of the hieroglyphs (i.e. visual narratives) allowed the understanding of the complexity of the Egyptian culture. Another example comes from the time of ancient Rome, where visual narratives contain complex infographic messages. The war periods followed by peace were an opportunity for cultural affirmation and development in which infographics played an important role. The power of the prominent figures of the Roman Empire was also due to the use of infographics on the emblematic monuments. This paper aims to bring a new perspective on the cultural history of humanity through the presence of infographics as a political tool for transmitting complex messages. The study presented in the paper is a decoding of the Adamclisi Monument, a Roman triumphal piece of architecture located in southern Romania, used to show a strong cultural and political message about war and peace. By transferring the symbols, shapes and human images from the metopes of this monument into contemporary visual form, one can lead to new ways of rendering historical and cultural events in a contemporary artistic interpretation.

Visualization and Virtualization of Art as New Dimension of Communicative Interaction and Social Management System

Introduction. “Visual turn” in art has determined the specifics of the civilized development of modern society. Information technology and virtual nature of the visual space development have influenced not only the language of communication but in general the entire system of social management. Purpose and methods. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the influence of modern visual art on our everyday life, opportunities for self-expression, communication, and social management. Methodological basis of the study is presented by historical, axiological, comparative, system and structural, formal and logical methods. Results. The article considers the modern reading of the visual image, its demand in modern culture, the reasons, and backgrounds of the “visual turn” in art, which has led to the diffusion of high and low in art, synthesis of creativity, and everyday life. The influence of communication virtualization, urbanization of the society and massification of culture on the formation of the individual's visual space and picture of the world are proved. Conclusions. Both positive and negative aspects of such social and cultural transformation in the process of contemporary art visualization are substantiated. The article proves that visualization of art through advertising, fashion, performance, industrial design is becoming the most important factor in social management and determination of consumers', social and cultural, ideological matrix of individual behavior. Under conditions of this hypertrophied visual component of everyday life, constructing and modeling of the newest methods of visual literacy and culture formation are justified.

The effectiveness of using visualization tools and forms in distance learning

The purpose of the article is to comprehensively consider the concept of visualization, which is one of the main factors of effective learning of educational material, as well as to analyze the possibilities of using visualization in distance learning. The article shows the relevance of visualization of distance education, describes visualization technologies as a tool for improving the effectiveness of distance learning, defines the essence of visualization in education, finds out the possibilities of using visualization to ensure the professional training of future specialists in the course of distance learning of academic disciplines, as well as considers the visualization tools used in students’ distance learning. Based on an empirical study of using visualization in the course of distance learning of the "Pedagogical Skills" course, the formedness of the cognitive and operational components of students' educational activities was evaluated. This allowed concluding that using contemporary visualization technologies in the educational process creates prerequisites for improving the quality and effectiveness of training, acts as a key factor in improving the effectiveness of the educational process. Visualization allows solving a set of pedagogical problems, such as making the complicated educational material of various disciplines understandable, accessible for awareness, without reducing the level of its scientific character, creating conditions for informal assimilation of the training content by learners, contributing acquisition of deep, systematic knowledge, and so on.

The agency of computer vision models as optical instruments

Industry and governments have deployed computer vision models to make high-stake decisions in society. While they are often presented as neutral and objective, scholars have recognized that bias in these models might lead to the reproduction of racial, social, cultural and economic inequity. A growing body of work situates the provenance of bias in the collection and annotation of datasets that are needed to train computer vision models. This article moves from studying bias in computer vision models to the agency that is commonly attributed to them: the fact that they are universally seen as being able to make biased decisions. Building on the work of Bruno Latour and Jonathan Crary, the authors discuss computer vision models as agential optical instruments in the production of contemporary visuality. They analyse five interconnected research steps – task selection, category selection, data collection, data labelling and evaluation – of six widely cited benchmark datasets, published during a critical stage in the development of the field (2004–2020): Caltech 101, Caltech 256, PASCAL VOC, ImageNet, MS COCO and Google Open Images. They found that, despite all sorts of justifications, the selection of categories is not based on any general notion of visuality, but depends heavily upon perceived practical applications, the availability of downloadable images and, in conjunction with data collection, favours categories that can be unambiguously described by text. Second, the reliance on Flickr for data collection introduces a temporal bias in computer vision datasets. Third, by comparing aggregate accuracy rates and ‘human’ performance, the dataset papers introduce a false dichotomy between the agency of computer vision models and human observers. In general, the authors argue that the agency of datasets is produced by obscuring the power and subjective choices of its creators and the countless hours of highly disciplined labour of crowd workers.

Food as Feminist Portraiture in Contemporary Visual Culture

Contemporary artists Emily Eveleth and Theresa Newsome effectively subvert power structures that determine gendered roles and attributes by implicating pleasure, through food symbolism, as a trait to be newly associated with autonomous femininity. By linking pleasure to restrictive connotations of femininity, like the socially maintained correlation between women and (preparing/serving) food, artists, as Judith Butler would describe, eroticize the power that once confined female bodies. Australian philosopher Elizabeth Grosz writes that many of her ideas appear close to the patriarchal concepts she ultimately combats; however, by altering the meaning of restrictive patriarchal binds, she reclaims them. I will explain how Newsome and Eveleth follow suite. Ultimately, by using food as bodies in contemporary visual culture, artists reclaim the limitations and associations imposed on female bodies, for instance, through traits of femininity. Within my analysis of Eveleth’s use of pastries and Newsome’s use of fruit, I will demonstrate the criticality of using precisely that which contains female bodies in order to reclaim their agency through a post-structuralist and feminist lens.

Negotiating the Data Deluge on YouTube: Practices of Knowledge Appropriation and Articulated Ambiguity Around Visual Scenarios of Sea-Level Rise Futures

The present study aims at evaluating how YouTube users understand, negotiate and appropriate science-related knowledge on YouTube. It is informed by the qualitative analysis of post-video discussions around visual scenarios of sea-level rise (SLR) triggered by climate change. On the one hand, the SLR maps have an exemplary status as contemporary visualizations of climate change risks, beyond traditional image categories such as scientific or popular imagery. YouTube, on the other hand, is a convenient media environment to investigate the situated appropriation of such visual knowledge, considering its increasing relevance as a navigational platform to provide, search, consume and debate science-related information. The paper draws on media practice theory and operationalizes digital methods and qualitative coding informed by Grounded Theory. It characterizes a number of communicative practices of articulated knowledge appropriation regarding climate knowledge. This includes “locating impacts,” “demanding representation,” “envisioning further,” “debating future action,” “relativizing the information,” “challenging the reality of anthropogenic climate change,” “embedding popular narratives,” “attributing to politics,” and “insulting others.” The article then discusses broader questions posed by the comments and related to the appropriation and discursive negotiation of knowledge within online video-sharing platforms. Ambiguity is identified as a major feature within the practice of science-related information retrieval and knowledge appropriation on YouTube. This consideration then serves as an opportunity to reconsider the relationship between information credibility and knowledge appropriation in the age of the digital. Findings suggest that ambiguity of information can have a positive impact on problem definition, future imagination and the discursive negotiation of climate change.

Insight Beyond Numbers: The Impact of Qualitative Factors on Visual Data Analysis.

As of today, data analysis focuses primarily on the findings to be made inside the data and concentrates less on how those findings relate to the domain of investigation. Contemporary visualization as a field of research shows a strong tendency to adopt this data-centrism. Despite their decisive influence on the analysis result, qualitative aspects of the analysis process such as the structure, soundness, and complexity of the applied reasoning strategy are rarely discussed explicitly. We argue that if the purpose of visualization is the provision of domain insight rather than the depiction of data analysis results, a holistic perspective requires a qualitative component to to be added to the discussion of quantitative and human factors. To support this point, we demonstrate how considerations of qualitative factors in visual analysis can be applied to obtain explanations and possible solutions for a number of practical limitations inherent to the data-centric perspective on analysis. Based on this discussion of what we call qualitative visual analysis, we develop an inside-outside principle of nested levels of context that can serve as a conceptual basis for the development of visualization systems that optimally support the emergence of insight during analysis.

A maleabilidade das imagens digitais e a visualidade rastreável

O substrato informacional das imagens digitais, a par da conectividade global, introduz novas dinâmicas que, além de derivações formais e discursivas, evocam um efeito de rede. Tais possibilidades de transcodificação, combinação e fluxo, aplicam-se aos diversos domínios da sociedade, incluindo as metodologias de estudo do visual. Com base em conceitos e exemplos, que cruzam arte, ciência e tecnologia, o artigo aborda como a mediação digital, assente em sistemas computacionais e em inteligência artificial utilizados como amplificação, técnica e estética, consolida o regime de visualidade contemporâneo, produto da sinergia entre o olhar humano e a visão artificial. Este estudo insere-se no âmbito da investigação doutoral em arte multimédia, com vista a desenvolver um modelo participativo de visualização de memórias coletivas.

Optimal visual perception in land-use planning and design based on landsenses ecology

ABSTRACTLand-use planning and design (LPD) is one of the most critical passways toward sustainable development. LPD without thorough considerations can cause many problems, such as disharmony between people’s perception and nature, the chaos of spatial patterns, and the misuse of land resources. Landsenses ecology, a discipline based on natural elements and people’s perception, provide scientific basis to guide LPD. Here we summarized the state-of-the-art concept of optimal visual perception based on conventional optical theory and contemporary visualization technology. Instead of solely using an artistic design perspective to sum up experience, we combined human binocular visual angle and distance with the field of view (FOV) of cell phone cameras to determine an optimal visual perception. We explained the rationality of the concept of optimal visual perception with three examples, located at the Institute of Urban Environmental (IUE) from Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Welcoming-Guests Pine on Huangshan Mountain, and the Sunlight Rock of Gulangyu Island in Xiamen, China, respectively. Both landsenses involving the IUE and Welcoming-Guests Pine satisfy the required conditions for optimal visual perception, whereas the Sunlight Rock shows the chaos of near and far landscapes, which is not compatible with the optimal visual perception. At the end of this paper, we provide pieces of advice on applying optimal visual perception to land-use planners and architects as well as sustainability scholars.

3D Multicolor DNA FISH Tool to Study Nuclear Architecture in Human Primary Cells.

A major question in cell biology is genomic organization within the nuclear space and how chromatin architecture can influence processes such as gene expression, cell identity and differentiation. Many approaches developed to study the 3D architecture of the genome can be divided into two complementary categories: chromosome conformation capture based technologies (C-technologies) and imaging. While the former is based on capturing the chromosome conformation and proximal DNA interactions in a population of fixed cells, the latter, based on DNA fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) on 3D-preserved nuclei, allows contemporary visualization of multiple loci at a single cell level (multicolor), examining their interactions and distribution within the nucleus (3D multicolor DNA FISH). The technique of 3D multicolor DNA FISH has a limitation of visualizing only a few predetermined loci, not permitting a comprehensive analysis of the nuclear architecture. However, given the robustness of its results, 3D multicolor DNA FISH in combination with 3D-microscopy and image reconstruction is a possible method to validate C-technology based results and to unambiguously study the position and organization of specific loci at a single cell level. Here, we propose a step by step method of 3D multicolor DNA FISH suitable for a wide range of human primary cells and discuss all the practical actions, crucial steps, notions of 3D imaging and data analysis needed to obtained a successful and informative 3D multicolor DNA FISH within different biological contexts.

Współczesne wizualizacje dziedzictwa Cyryla i Metodego w przestrzeni słowiańskiej

<p>Artykuł poświęcony jest omówieniu dziedzictwa Cyryla i Metodego w Słowiańszczyźnie. Uwaga autorki koncentruje się na współczesnym odzwierciedleniu obrazów obu braci i ich dziedzictwa w krajach, które kultywują pamięć o nich. Przedstawianie Apostołów Słowiańskich ma swoją tradycję w malarstwie, ikonach i pomnikach. Odniesienia do sztuki ukazane zostały w kontekście historycznym niektórych krajów słowiańskich należących do Kościoła zachodniego i do Kościoła prawosławnego. W opracowaniu wskazuje się na szczególną rolę w rozprzestrzenianiu tradycji cyrylometodejskiej w sztuce Bułgarii. Kraj ten, poprzez kult Braci Sołuńskich w średniowieczu, przyjął ich do swej tradycji pod deskrypcją terytorialną Apostołowie Bułgarscy, a dziś znajduje się w pozycji depozytariusza ich spuścizny. Współcześnie Bułgarzy wyrażają pamięć o Cyrylu i Metodym poprzez wznoszenie pomników alfabetu cyrylickiego, które odsłaniane są także poza światem słowiańskim, co w efekcie służy podkreślaniu znaczenia pisma słowiańskiego.</p>

THE POSTMODERN TURN IN PROSUMING IMAGES: JUXTAPOSITION, DIALOGISM, AND THE SUPPLEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CULTURE

This paper aims to problematize the very place of prosuming images (TAPSCOTT; WILLIAMS, 2007), that is, images simultaneously produced and consumed, within the perspectives of the postmodern and the visual turns in contemporary society. Of qualitative/interpretative nature, it discusses and connects such turns to the philosophical concepts of dialogism (BAKHTIN, 1981), cultural translation (MIGNOLO; SCHIWY, 2002; MENEZES DE SOUZA, 2004; HALL, 1997), supplements (DERRIDA, 1978), and visual culture (ROGOFF, 2002; HALL, 1997) by means of interpretations of photographic images from social media (Instagram, Facebook) and free images from websites. The article is divided into 5 sections: after the introduction in which questions of language, representation and visual meaning making are briefly discussed, the second part explores the dialogic nature of language that seeks to juxtapose visual narratives. The third part focuses on the Postmodern and the Visual turns, and suggests that concepts of cultural translation and supplementation are paramount in visual studies. In the fourth section, visual culture – intertwined with cultural translation - is analyzed through the concepts of supplements and ruptures. To conclude, this paper advocates for more critical ways of understanding the so-called crisis of representation in (post) modern society.