Generating Knowledge: Visualising the Invisible in Handwritten Media

When: Thursday, 9 February 2023, 1:00 pm – Friday, 10 February 2023, 1:15 pm CET
Where: Warburgstraße 26, 20354 Hamburg, Room 0001 (Pavilion), and online

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Knowledge visualisation is the utilisation of visuals, e.g. images, illustrations, sketches, diagrams, models, graphs, charts, or infographics, to create and transmit knowledge as well as ensure greater insights and new perspectives on a given topic. Various visualisation methods were used long before the invention of information technology. The topic with regard to handwritten media has gained increasing attention recently concerning manuscripts from medieval and early modern Europe.

Visualisations aim to support cognitive processes in generating, representing, structuring, retrieving, sharing, and using knowledge. The proposed workshop aims to explore visualisation techniques in handwritten media with a special focus on knowledge generation by visualisations. For instance, many diagrams and other forms of (multi)graphic visualisation should not be treated as finished, as they represent not just a static and final arrangement of forms on a surface, but rather a point of departure for continuous processes of a controlled (re-)construction by the reader/viewer. Thus, the reader/viewer of the artefact turns into a co-author, re-constructing the message, as well as generating new meanings.

We are inviting case studies on multigraphic written artefacts with visuals depicting or illustrating abstract, intangible or imperceptible concepts with a theological, scientific, or teaching background. Some of the questions the workshop will address are: when are visuals applied to generate knowledge or to support this process in handwritten media? What is the function of these visuals and how do they contribute to making knowledge more accessible? What factors may contribute to the transfer of these visualisations into another manuscript or into another culture of writing? How do visuals interplay with other contents of a multigraphic written artefact and how does the visual organisation of the artefact inform us about these relations? What similarities and differences can be detected in the use of visual languages in various cultures of writing?

Workshop Organisers

Szilvia Jáka-Sövegjártó and Polina Yaroslavtseva 

Please register via the form below.