Expressive Cartography, Boundary Objects, and the Aesthetics of Public Visualization

Aesthetic visualization projects that incorporate users, community stakeholders, multiple modalities and technologies emphasize the way that an artistic visualization can be both an artifact and a process—a conceptualization of aesthetic visualization that is useful for thinking about visualization in general. In this article, the authors propose the concept of the visualization as boundary object, a move away from the indexical claims of visualization and instead toward an acknowledgment of the entangled nature of social, political, economic, cultural, technological and environmental actants. Through a description of the In the Air, Tonight public visualization project, the authors suggest that by making manifest the connections between these actants, a visualization project, as a form of expressive cartography, can contribute to the visibility of and engagement with important issues (e.g. homelessness) that affect society.