LONDON CONFERENCE IN CRITICAL THOUGHT 2023

June 30th and July 1st, 2023

Call for Presentations – deadline March 13th, 2022

The Call for Presentations is now open for the 10th annual London Conference in Critical Thought(LCCT), hosted and supported by the School of Social Sciences and Professions at London Metropolitan University. This will be an IN-PERSON conference, occurring at the Holloway Road (North) campus of London Metropolitan University. The full call is available here: LCCT 2023 Call for Presentations<http://londoncritical.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/LCCT-2023-Call-for-Presentations-1.pdf>

Proposals are invited for the conference stream REIMAGINING DATA VISUALISATION: CRITICAL QUESTIONS< EXPANDED PRACTICES:

Data visualisations are used in a wide range of disciplines, including digital humanities, visual communications, urbanism, environmental science and many more. This stream invites proposals that engage critically with visualisation practices, exploring their epistemological, social and ecological effects, exposing the assumptions inherent within them, and imagining alternative aesthetic and ethical approaches.

Data-driven computational processes constitute a substrate of human experience in the 21st century – we interact continually with digital devices, applications and networks, such that they become embodied aspects of our everyday lives, enmeshed in social, economic and cultural practices. This tendency towards datafication impacts scholarly research, having implications for what counts as knowledge, and how this knowledge is produced (see: Beer 2022; Esposito 2022). In this techno- cultural context, data visualisations have become an essential means of communicating complex information to broad audiences. Yet, visualisation practices are neither neutral nor transparent. Johanna Drucker (2020) posits that the translation of data into graphical forms acts constructively to interpret the information and construct an argument. Moreover, these processes of visual interpretation are imbued with a range of cultural biases which require further scrutiny, because they contain codes and hierarchies inherited from the history of visual culture – for example, presuppositions about what constitutes a ‘scientific image’ based on Western notions of objectivity. This raises questions of how visualisation practices might be decolonised and degendered to democratise knowledge production and communication (see: Ignazio and Klein, 2020).

This stream aims to articulate these questions by critically examining existing visualisation practices, and offer responses by testing alternative approaches that acknowledge the embodied and situated character of knowledge. It welcomes presentations of experimental, creative and speculative practice- research.

Possible questions to explore include:

  *   What forms of knowledge do data visualisations produce / how do they act to define the object of knowledge?
  *   Can we reframe what ‘counts’ as data and how data are counted?
  *   What is occluded in the process of selecting data and presenting it in visual forms?
  *   What role do visualisations play in data colonialism?
  *   What power structures are implicit in visualisation practices / what empowerment can be achieved by approaching them differently?
  *   What would a feminist data visualisation look like?
  *   How can indigenous knowledge inform a more inclusive and/or ecological approach to information visualisation?
  *   What forms of mapping can render the labour that produces datasets visible?
  *   Can participatory design approaches help to decolonise data visualisation, making it more transparent and accountable?
  *   What creative media methods could be used to develop an expanded and multi-sensory visualisation practice?

Please send an abstract for a proposed presentation to [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> with the stream title ‘Reimagining Data Visualisations: Critical Questions, Expanded Practices’ indicated in the subject line. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words and must be received by Monday March 13th 2023.

If you would like to discuss your proposal prior to submission, please contact the stream organiser: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>

Dr Hannah Lammin
Senior Lecturer in Media Theory | Programme Lead: BA Hons Media and Communications
School of Design
University of Greenwich

University of Greenwich, a charity and company limited by guarantee, registered in England (reg no. 986729). Registered Office: Old Royal Naval College, Park Row, Greenwich SE10 9LS.

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