Visualization in the Age of Computerization

Over the past decade, there has been an unprecedented rate of innovation in computational imaging and visualising techniques to render physical and non-physical data in visual form, including techniques for multidimensionality, the development of algorithmic techniques for image processing, the production of hybrid visual objects and an apparent photorealism for non-existent entities and objects. The emergence of the internet-as-database, with complex and massive quantities of data mined from online social and spatial processes given visual form, has gone hand-in-hand with these advances in making new phenomena and data visible. This volume explores the ways that computational visualisation affects practices of science, the perceptual and cognitive activities involved in scientific enquiry, and the notions of objectivity that are deployed methodologically, as well as with respect to what counts as a scientific object.

Annamaria Carusi is Senior Research Associate of the Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford and Adjunct Professor in Philosophy and Art and Media Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

Timothy Webmoor is an anthropologist of technology and design at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS) at University of Oxford.

Steve Woolgar is Professor of Marketing and Head of the the Science and Technology Studies research group with the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at Said Business School, University of Oxford. He is also Head of the Science and Technology Studies Academic Area in the School.