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  • History on the Line: time as dimension

Boyd Davis, Stephen, 2012, Journal Article, History on the Line: time as dimension Design Issues, 28 (4). pp. 4-17. ISSN 0747-9360

Abstract or Description:

Boyd Davis’s work concerns representation, principally visual and spatial. This article discusses mapping historical time to a graphical surface, such as in timelines, focusing on the orientation of the time axis. Boyd Davis gained a £92K EPSRC grant to develop these inquiries into digital formats in 2012, and £70K from the Leverhulme Trust ending in 2010. It contrasts the paucity of intellectual debate on mapping time with the controversies over competing geographic projections, a dearth that Boyd Davis’s work is dedicated to correcting.
The article proposes a research agenda derived from a synthesis of the literatures of cognitive science and gesture studies, revealing that the metaphorical direction of time differs between verbal and gestural usage, and to a lesser extent between cultures. It features original archive research into the emergence of modern chronographics in the mid-18th century, a shift from typographic, tabular layouts to truly graphical time-maps based on a changing model of time spawned by Descartes and Newton. Research into the timelines of Nicole Oresme (1350s) and Jacques Barbeu-Dubourg and Joseph Priestley (1750s) reveals their difficulties in finding the ‘right’ direction for time.
Related work included a co-written paper for ‘Electronic Visualisation and the Arts’, London (2010), selected for the 2013 Springer book of best full papers (21 of c.160); a paper for the 26th ‘Computers and the History of Art’, London (2010); experimental work using virtual environments to represent historic time, a Leverhulme project co-led by Boyd Davis: two co-written articles for Computers & Education (2012); a chapter in Huang (ed.), Handbook of Human Centric Visualization (2013); a guest article for Joseph Priestley House Museum, PA, USA (2011); an invited talk on original research into French 18th-century contributions to chronographics, Centre de Recherches Texte/Image/Langage, Université de Bourgogne (2012); and a paper for ‘EVA2013’, London (2013).

Official URL: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DE...
Subjects: Other > Biological Sciences > C800 Psychology > C850 Cognitive Psychology
Creative Arts and Design > W200 Design studies
Creative Arts and Design > W200 Design studies > W210 Graphic Design > W213 Visual Communication
School or Centre: School of Design
Identification Number or DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/DESI_a_00171
Date Deposited: 03 Oct 2012 17:43
Last Modified: 09 Nov 2018 14:25
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/1204
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