Different -1

The main research question of my dissertation, which I concluded in 2011 at the University of Granada (Spain) focused on discovering how qualitative diagrams —those visualisations that express non-quantitative relationships between their elements — generate their meaning. In order to answer this question, an adequate methodology had to be found. A practice-led approach, where the theme of inquiry could be explored through image-production itself, was considered useful. The specific methodology described by Michael Renner as “Practice-Led Iconic Research”, where systematic generation of visual variants and their subsequent comparison and analysis are used to gain knowledge about images, was chosen as an approach. A detailed description of the role that image-production played in the course of the research process is offered below.   
To obtain information about how the meaning of qualitative diagrams is generated, it is indispensable to be able to define what elements of the image trigger a specific interpretation. A comparison of different examples may help the decision in regards to this aspect. However, images are highly complex conglomerations: compositional, formal and medial aspects in all their wide variance converge in one single constellation. A genuine comparison is seldom granted, as too many elements vary simultaneously to allow for a precise identification of the meaningful characteristics. It proved to be necessary in most instances to specifically design the visual material on which the research should be based.

Figure 1.1 – 1.4 shows a series of unspecified processes of diversification. 
1.1 and 1.2 visualise identical information. The only difference between them exists in the spatial arrangement they employ: while the first one is based on a horizontal timeline, organised from left to right, the second diagram uses a circular arrangement. Both visualisations seem to imply a certain organic character, but the associations generated by them change significantly through the different spatial structurations. 1.1 seems to still imply a certain regularity, while in 1.2 the same process appears to be much more aleatory and unforeseeable.  Diagrams 1.3 and 1.4 have reduced the temporal information to their hierarchical structuration: there is no longer detailed information about the moment in which each branching took place. Both variants also visualise the same information through different spatial arrangements: 1.3 uses horizontal sequencing, while the information in 1.4 is organised as a tree-map. Compared to the first two diagrams, figure 1.3 offers a more organised impression; a certain predictability of the process could be expected. All organic associations disappear, however, with figure 1.4, as the nesting of the different hierarchical levels no longer allows associations with a branching process. 

The use of pre-existing graphic material could not have generated answers in an equivalent manner, as the conclusions would then have been based on conjectures about images instead of on images themselves. Yet image-generation not only delivered the necessary material for examination, but also formed an integral part of the analytical process itself. Insights gained about the visual material through working practically on it, influenced in a decisive manner the development of the systematics which constitute the main output of the first part of the project. There always seems to be a certain vagueness or displacement between the imagined variation of an original design and its mode of operation, and the appearance and effects of the materialised variants of the same. The tension that originates out of this ambiguity enforces the active dialogue between the analytical and the practical approach to the research question. A constant process of reviewing and rethinking the self-established interpretations based on the traces of the multiple decisions that were taken to create the visual variants, enables insights to be given about the images that a strictly interpretative position would not permit.   The systematics that were developed in the first part of the project to describe how meaning is generated in qualitative diagrams, were applied in the second part to the analysis of visualisations of biological classification.  Image creation played a central role in this part of the dissertation as well, though in different ways as the ones described thus far. Some variations and rearrangements of the original visualisations were created to locate common problems and misunderstandings; to show inconsistencies in their own coding or to explain how alternatives could solve certain problems, while creating new ones.

Figure 2.1 – 2.4 shows Darwin’s first sketch on evolution (2.1, 1837) and the analysis (2.2) and rearrangement (2.3 and 2.4) of the same designed in the course of this project. A clear structuring of the information helps to better understand the intended temporal sequence and to differentiate between extinct and actual specimens in an optimised way. However, the overall arbitrary and haphazard character of the original drawing, which quite accurately reflected Darwin’s idea of the process of evolution, gets lost in this more balanced visualisation. In the light of this graphic sequence it becomes easier to comprehend why Darwin chose a different visual translation of his theories for his book. 
Yet image production was not only meaningful to the project as a practical approach, but also as a background experience. The awareness of the variability of the image, of the structural and formal choices the authors of the diagrams selected in part two, had at their disposal while materialising their ideas into the final composition, allowed a less static approach to the analysis of the visualisations. Thinking about what is shown, as well as about the possibilities that were not taken into consideration, made it possible to establish connections with a wide variety of visualisations based on similarities or differences in the options they embody.   “Practice-Led Iconic Research” has proved to be a useful methodology for this project to gain in-depth knowledge about images. The systematic generation of visual variations, and the consequent comparison and analysis of the produced material made it possible to not only discover and describe the observed phenomena in a precise manner, but also to structure the whole content around the question about the meaning of visuality.

All images were designed by Paloma López Grüninger, with the exception of the original sketch by Charles Darwin in figure 2.a.
Renner, Michael (2010): Practice-Led Iconic Research. In: diid, disegno industriale industrial design, nr. 42/43, 76-83. 
Renner, Michael (2011): The Mute Iconic Criticism Of Design. In: Rheinsprung 11, Nr. 1, 92-116.