11. Finding the Key for my Media

Recently I have been locking down my Key texts for my proposal and trying to find good quotes and notes on what I can gather. The selection is so wide and varied that is can be hard to not get lost in it all and find yourself in a realm of information that is too far from the reality of your topic.

The visualisation chapter of this journal really focuses on the point that by using visualisation in tandem with other inputs such as text, it frees up 'cognitive space' of the working memory. This means that when consulting text or a visual learning aid, your eyes can take in more than decoding everything in text form. For example if you are reading an article and there is an image that represents its core concept, you can consult the image as you read allowing the words to form meaning in your head a lot faster, as you have a rough mental image of it already. 

"When readers construct mental images during reading it enables them to form strong links with personal meanings and develop deeper levels of reading engagement"

Following this younger reader will be more active in reading sessions where relevant imagery is used as:

"It follows that children will be more engaged in the reading process when they use visual imagery because it relies on prior experiences to construct mental pictures."

Its all about them building up on what the text and words represent, then they can make connections and observations about what they are reading. This will create a foundation and mental library for them to consult when reading pages that have no images, or speeding up thought processes if there is imagery. 

This could be woven into the DNA bunny concept, very watered down genetics, or at least the mental modal for genetics. Would be an interesting topic to challenge the typical demographic age for learning about complex topics.

2 Visualization
Scientific information is spread out over disciplines which, to the outside observer, may seem to have little in common.  It is like trying to complete a puzzle and not knowing where to put the piece held in the hand, not seeing which puzzle pieces it fits in with.which is not visible to the eye, or to create a mental image of something that is not obvious (e.g. an abstraction)” (Owen, 1999) is the definition of the word “visualization” that point to the intrinsic need to represent information in a non-traditional manner. 

 To visualize is a task of the communicative process, through which abstract data and complex phe that
cannot be directly retrieved from a hidden body of knowledge.visible to the human eye that which is small and very difficult to perceive, only exists in our minds, information science resorts to the diffuse realm of
the so-called virtual reality. 

Computerized visualization techniques can beused to make manifest phenomena that are not visible on their own, such as the implicit relationships among component elements (Araya, 2003).

What is visualisation? - Lev Manovich

This article is focused on what visualisation is and how it can about, from points, straight lines, curves and simple geometric shapes to stand in for objects and relations between them. It also includes sections on position, size, shape and,  movement to convey the differences in information and their relationships.  I'm still in the process of reading this journal, but it seems as it would be useful in conveying how and why we see things as they are, and how we build these relationship. All of this in turn could effect how i create my work and how I present it .