Relationality and Interconnectivity
With Scalar editors can form relationships and interconnections among the total book’s different constituent elements. What might seem implicit in a traditional book form can become more explicit in Scalar. Through the implementation of the different features available, editors can make visible the journal’s thematic and conceptual links.
Visualizations, as it’s already been discussed, is one method through which the connections are shown. Although not as intricate and sophisticated as, say, a Gephi visualization or a statistical scatterplot, their simple and reductive structure permits us and readers to see relationships that are not obvious in a non-visual format. It is all a matter of perspective. Scalar shifts, or re-scales, the perspective from the literary to the visual, from the linear to spatial. We can already witness this perspectival re-scaling in some ballad woodcuts. The woodcut from the Pepys Ballad “The Lamentable and Tragical History of Titus Andronicus; with the / Fall of his 25 Sons, in the Wars of Goths, with the manner of the Ravishment of his Daughter Lavinia / by the Empresses two Sons, through the means of a Bloody Moor, taken by the Sword of Titus, in the / War; with his Revenge upon their Cruel and Inhumane Act” (EBBA ID 20800), in particular, spatializes the ballad’s events:
Though the woodcut is not arranged in the same manner as the Scalar visualizations, it does spatialize some of the key events. It makes the suggestion that these events, from the handless Lavinia’s writing on the sand to the consumption of the Empress’ sons to the Moor’s half-burial, are perhaps interrelated. They produce an interpretation of the ballad that may or may not cohere with what the original ballad says. In turn, they challenge the reader to look at the ballad anew and thereby complicate the reader’s understanding.
In the same spirit, Scalar visualizations increase the level of complexity, yet in contrast to the nuanced depictions of the woodcuts, the aesthetic of Scalar visualizations, if we can use the word “aesthetic,” is of a more simplified and streamlined design. These visual images are radials, index boxes, and circular nodes—geometric shapes, really. They orient the journal contents into standardized representations, and by “standardized,” it is meant that the style or look of a Scalar radial visualization of one book, for instance, is generally the same as that of radial visualization of another book. The appearance of the visualizations is preprogrammed and already set in the Scalar platform. The program ultimately “draws” the connections. There is indeed a lot that is lost in the shift from the literary to the standardized visual. But we gain in turn a new perspective.
This is the value of reduction. To reduce is to create an alternative vantage point of evaluating and measuring our journal. It is to distill from manifold intricacy a direct representation of the associative links among the contents of the journal. Directly representing links falls also within the purview of pathways and tags. The features of fostering different reading experiences and showing visualized connections, it turns out, are all forms of tactical reduction. If “reduction” sounds negative and unappealing, let’s call the prevailing operation of Scalar the deliberate re-scaling and adjustment of perspective. Scalar’s preprogrammed features act like different prosthetic lenses through which observing readers can engage the subject matter.
Visualizations, as it’s already been discussed, is one method through which the connections are shown. Although not as intricate and sophisticated as, say, a Gephi visualization or a statistical scatterplot, their simple and reductive structure permits us and readers to see relationships that are not obvious in a non-visual format. It is all a matter of perspective. Scalar shifts, or re-scales, the perspective from the literary to the visual, from the linear to spatial. We can already witness this perspectival re-scaling in some ballad woodcuts. The woodcut from the Pepys Ballad “The Lamentable and Tragical History of Titus Andronicus; with the / Fall of his 25 Sons, in the Wars of Goths, with the manner of the Ravishment of his Daughter Lavinia / by the Empresses two Sons, through the means of a Bloody Moor, taken by the Sword of Titus, in the / War; with his Revenge upon their Cruel and Inhumane Act” (EBBA ID 20800), in particular, spatializes the ballad’s events:
Though the woodcut is not arranged in the same manner as the Scalar visualizations, it does spatialize some of the key events. It makes the suggestion that these events, from the handless Lavinia’s writing on the sand to the consumption of the Empress’ sons to the Moor’s half-burial, are perhaps interrelated. They produce an interpretation of the ballad that may or may not cohere with what the original ballad says. In turn, they challenge the reader to look at the ballad anew and thereby complicate the reader’s understanding.
In the same spirit, Scalar visualizations increase the level of complexity, yet in contrast to the nuanced depictions of the woodcuts, the aesthetic of Scalar visualizations, if we can use the word “aesthetic,” is of a more simplified and streamlined design. These visual images are radials, index boxes, and circular nodes—geometric shapes, really. They orient the journal contents into standardized representations, and by “standardized,” it is meant that the style or look of a Scalar radial visualization of one book, for instance, is generally the same as that of radial visualization of another book. The appearance of the visualizations is preprogrammed and already set in the Scalar platform. The program ultimately “draws” the connections. There is indeed a lot that is lost in the shift from the literary to the standardized visual. But we gain in turn a new perspective.
This is the value of reduction. To reduce is to create an alternative vantage point of evaluating and measuring our journal. It is to distill from manifold intricacy a direct representation of the associative links among the contents of the journal. Directly representing links falls also within the purview of pathways and tags. The features of fostering different reading experiences and showing visualized connections, it turns out, are all forms of tactical reduction. If “reduction” sounds negative and unappealing, let’s call the prevailing operation of Scalar the deliberate re-scaling and adjustment of perspective. Scalar’s preprogrammed features act like different prosthetic lenses through which observing readers can engage the subject matter.
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