The powerpoint for the visualization project

Here is the link for our group presentation slides: http://www.slideshare.net/yoshiuil/male-to-female-suicide-rates

I mainly contributed to the first three slides in this powerpoint

The visual effects and the social body

To start this blog, let's start with the word 'empathy'

What is empathy? Is it just an emotional change or something more than its essence?

In 21 century, the definition of empathy can be a property, an advertisement, a stimulant potentially illuminating some hidden truth that we hardly see from the society we are living in. Perhaps, we can be even more creative to think 'empathy', this concept, is an art form, just like other emotions we have towards something we see/hear/feel, every sense of us is as a result of our relationship, our bonding to all the embodied experience around us. 

The form of visualization can be seen as the most influential process directly delivering the idea to us. By seeing the images, we occasionally would link it to our personal life and after this immediate effect has taken, our view of the issue of the images can be reformed. Just like one of the readings about polar bears on the endangered species list, a debate based on the effect of global warming has threatened the existence of this species. 

The image depicts a polar bear having trouble stand on a small iceberg, which is in the middle surrounded by water. It's pretty self-explanatory to relate to the event of climate change in the way of how it presents. As the polar bear here is being used as a symbol to emphasize on the severity of what the climate change has brought to nature. At this point, this visualization shares an empathetic feeling to the audience and that such success is due to the simplicity that it creates even stronger impact on our thought. It doesn't have to involve a long process to complicate something we get from the reality, because what this image is highlighting is the 'reality' that is happening currently. It fits the circumstances and unpack the issue well enough for the audience to associate it to the general social interaction. The significance of transparency within it that unites us and the general social body into one at this moment. 

Other than this, something intriguing I found is regarding to Vjing, another example that gathers the public altogether. Vivid Festival presents this idea fair well as it further extends the power of Vjing, which has brought the positive atmosphere alive in an artistic form. It's all about the variation, combination of lighting showcase that makes us mind-blown. Each year in Vivid, there would be more than a million people to celebrate this happiness since Vjing is something that strikingly impress us, something we see and then we feel its fascination. You cannot completely say this is a light show when it also accompanies with the creation of music and thus, the patterns of the lighting can be reformed and remixed as well as the beats of the background music. 

I am starting to feel how advanced technology reshapes the higher level of visualization by offering a chance for us to decode the textual elements within the pictures and how all these landmarks get us drown in its beauty of creation. But more important is that visualization encourages us to see, interact and perceive the messages in new and revolutionary ways. Ultimately seeing the effects is still far more profound then reading about the effects within the public sphere, only that we can actually feel how that relates to us as an individual, a social entity.   

Here are some videos I found on Youtube, let's familiarize with Vjing first... 

What is Vjing?

VJing, Live Visuals & creating videos with glowing pictures

Wax tailor Vjing - to dry up

                                      enjoy the videos!!!

Reference

Anon (2008), 'Struggling polar bears put on endangered list', <http://metro.co.uk/2008/05/15/struggling-polar-bears-put-on-endangered-list-137306/>, accessed on 14th of May