Comment on Cartographies of Time

Before talking about ways to represent time, it crucial to understand the meaning of representation. How do you choose a perfect way to represent is always related to what story/argument you want to tell/build. Base on this, we could understand that good way of representing time is not equal to high technology. Although the arise of animation did significantly improve it, people back in old time had figured out creative idea to depict what happened when time passed. One important criteria for representing time is whether it could show an overview of all the events, but also show enough info about every item in the representation. In my eye The chart A Chart of Biography is a good representative. The sparse area on the left side and the dense part on the right clearly indicate in which period scientist and scientific activity is active. Also observer could easily zoom in each of the scientist to see how long did he/she live and during which period according to the length of line and the time colum. Another important aspect is time scale. Limited to the size of a chart of drawing, it is usually hard to perceive the scale of time. In the case of Manuscript timeline, observer could clear identify which part the fragment of timeline on the left is located in. Also information adjacent to it could give you a sense of overview, which perfectly fit the rule I mentioned above. Extensive and relevant information are also crucial for reader to understand a timeline chart. In the case of Charles Joseph Minard. This is a perfect case in terms of telling a story in the form of timeline. But it is also hard to read for it has many extra info that is impossible to understand until reader closely read the legend.

Comment on Spatial Humanities

Bodenhamer addressed the importance of finding a new way to represent space in humanities “… space…has assumed a more interesting and active role in how we understand history and culture.” GIS has the capacity of making those statistical data visual and appeal to readers in ways more powerful than words do. Archaeology and history are the first two subjects that As GIS provided a new way for Archaeologist and historian to recreate past landscapes and cityscapes, we as urban design students also can visualizing various urban built environment bay combining different data layers. But for humanities, GIS is still considered as a tool for research in limited area for it is hard to represent time and memory in GIS. “GIS employs a limited linear logic that is not adequate for understanding societal complexity, and as a consequence, it represents and perpetuates a particular view of political, economic, and social power.” Another disadvantage is that GIS is built on a positivist epistemology, while humanities is not measure or acknowledged precisely but “always contingent upon the perspective of the observer.” The last but not the least, humanists need to spend a lot of time to learn GIS before using it, which is difficult for them because they are not trained in this way. However, Bodenhamer still believed GIS has its potential to be fuse with humanities. Although” We have not enabled our understanding of culture to be as dynamic as the act of creating culture itself”, new technology could be applied to make history and memory dynamic and vital, as the author mentioned the case of reconstructing the Roman Forum visual reality. The concept of deep maps may have chance to be realized in the future and despite many limits GIS has, it is a good start.