What is information? How is information perceived?
Where does information exist? Is information alike to everyone?
Where does information exist? Is information alike to everyone?
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The Faculty of Information at University of Toronto aims to answer these questions and capture the nature of information, through a form of analysis
that spans beyond words. The arts, including drawing and colouring, often allows people to express themselves in ways that are more compelling and wide-ranging than writing. Building upon this concept, Professor Jenna Hartel, the iSquare research team, and the Fellows from the JHI Scholars-in-Residence program, employ an empirical, visual method known as the draw-and-write technique to conduct arts-informed research. |
Arts-informed research is used to qualitatively investigate the nature of information. Through the amalgamation of literary, graphic, and colour-infused content, the iSquare project hopes to gain rich and deep insights into the perception of information, and reach diverse audiences through the universal language of art. Meshing this fluid quality of art to the systematic and rigid methods of research is a challenge the iSquare team has taken on, as they have employed five original analytical approaches to evaluate the data set. Through these lenses, the team prospects to bring information science to the visual Information Age and create a resonant multimedia genealogy that turns information into meaning.
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SITE OF Production |
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This site aims to recreate the environment that all participants experienced during data collection, and to reveal some field observations from the JHiSquare team to the audience. The brown paper tablecloth, colour pens and 8” x 8” squared paper are the original materials that participants used in the study. The handwritten texts on the other side of the table are the fieldnotes that the JHiSquare team had taken during the data gathering session. Together, this site brings people back to the day when the colored iSqaures were first created and then collected.
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SITE OF THE IMAGE
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This site is comprised of 39 JHiSquares created by the 39 JHI Scholars-in-Residence who participated in our data collection. The arrangement of this display is dictated by an organizational scheme that places each JHiSquare into one, or multiple sites of analysis. The resulting horizontal network that is displayed is representative of an analytical spectrum, which progresses from positivist to interpretivist frameworks, that were used to evaluate the data set.
A legend, featuring brief explanations of each of the five analytical approaches is provided to help guide viewers, visually, through this display of JHiSquares. Of all the analytical approaches, Formal Analysis stands as the quintessential positivist method used to strictly evaluate the formal elements of the iSquares such as line, shape, and colour. As the horizontal spectrum evolves, holistic techniques that abide by interpretivist frameworks were employed to add additional layers of social, cultural, and psychological meaning to our data set. SITE OF THE AUDIENCELastly, we come to the site of the audience - you. The JHiSquare project comes together with this exhibition, and with you as our viewers. As you look into the differently placed mirrors, you will see yourself reflected back at you. This showcases what information ultimately is - a reflection of the experiences and interpretations that you made for us. The most important element of the project is the connection between our research question and the people who brought it to life in squares of beautiful and colourful artwork. Thank you for being a part of the JHiSquare project, and for bringing information to life.
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The two silver lines seen emerging from behind the drawings, forms the shape of a horizontal pyramid that begins with a pointed tip, and broadens into a widening frame. In this way, the triangular shape stands as a visual counterpart to representing the broadening of analytical techniques that were used to evaluate and give meaning to the JHiSquares corpus.
Emerging from, and spanning between the JHiSquares are lines of coloured string. These visual connections are strategically placed and arranged using strings that chromatically correspond to the range of colours associated with each method of analysis. With this approach, the coloured string attached to a given JHiSquare reveals the method of visual analysis primarily used to assess it. While certain JHiSquares are exclusively associated with a single colour of string, implying that analysis most effectively occurs using a single framework, others may host a multitude of coloured strings that are associated with various positivist and interpretivist analytical strategies. Download our exhibition catalogue!
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