Tufte Video

I thought it was interesting how the video discussed cartography and how the first maps were made this way about 6,000 years ago. The first map was created by scratching directions into a piece of stone. Its interesting how this visualization resulted into technological maps that we use today such as Google Maps. The same ideas and concepts of designing a map remain the same; however, the processes in which they are made, scratching it into stone opposed to designing it on a computer, and different. Yet, people still use maps the same way in that they are doing something with it. I didn't realize that Google Maps came from the concept of cartography and I found it interesting how the processes of cartography and its relationships with designing maps evolved.

I also thought the way the video described data visualization as a linear process of decision making was interesting. Our brains are constantly working and activity is always present. Our brains work in a way that we analyze data visualization so quickly and use that to make a split second decision. For example as the video was saying, our brain analyzes patterns as lines in grass or lines of a tiger coming at us. Decoding these patterns results in quick decision making that we use for survival. I never thought of data visualization as a survival tool that we use. I feel we often do not recognize this and take it for granted. This is an advantage that we have as artists because we can take this technique and use it to communicate in a number of ways.