Visualizing the Weird and the Eerie

Matthew Brehmer

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arXiv · 2309.01763

Visualizing the Weird and the Eerie

Matthew Brehmer

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Abstract

In this brief essay, I reflect on how Mark Fisher's definitions of the weird and the eerie could be applied in communicative data visualization. I ask how visualization designers might elicit these two impressions when a viewer is engaging with multimodal representations of data. I argue that there are situations in which viewers should feel uncertain or suspicious of unseen forces that account for the presence or absence of audiovisual patterns. Finally, I conclude that the ability to appreciate the weird and the eerie in data is particularly important at this moment in history, one marked by significant ecological and economic disruption.

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Matthew Brehmer. 2023-09-04. Visualizing the Weird and the Eerie. https://arxiv.org/abs/2309.01763

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