Visualización de datos y la imaginación moderna

Abstract

Data visualisations are a language we are accustomed to, a form of communication, which tell us a story: art with a function, as Alberto Cairo stated, “a plural technology (a discipline) that consists of transforming data into semantic information […] through a syntax of imprecise and constantly evolving borders based on the conjunction of signs of an iconic nature (figurative) with others of an arbitrary and abstract nature (non-figurative)” (Cairo, 2011, p. 38). There is a certain magic in these “information graphics” that take advantage of our capacities and ways of processing visual information (Arnheim, 2011). These visualisations build images that are capable of condensing and synthesising trends and patterns of quantitative data, which feed our imagination and expand our knowledge of the world around us.