Beyond the merely visual: Interacting with digital objects in interdisciplinary scientific practice

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss how digital objects interactively par ticipate in knowledge production in science. Data collected suggests that while scientific visualizations are employed with the aim to 'simplify' the apprehension of complex sets of data, there is much interpretive work that occurs before the group arrives at shared meanings concerning such im ages, which are in turn essential in establishing the truth of the mathemati cal models analyzed through such visual means. Shared understandings are achieved through oral communication and embodied interaction with visual objects, complementing the meanings which images and words pur port to convey on their own.

Construindo imagens e territórios: pensando a visualidade e a materialidade do sensoriamento remoto

“…Lacuna que pode ser explorada com base em estudos etnográficos de representações científicas que invistam para além do "meramente visual" (Monteiro, 2010a).…”

“…O argumento é que, de forma contraditória, a centralidade da imagem na ciência coloca a necessidade de pensar além da imagem (Monteiro, 2010a). Dito em outros termos: se quisermos, do ponto de vista intelectual, compreender a centralidade das imagens científicas na construção do nosso mundo atual, devemos pensar para além do visual e para além de representações (Suárez, 2010).…”

Computer Versus Microscope: Visual Activity Fields of Instruments in the Information Age

“…His main analytic concern is with the absence of materiality and the viewing bodies, which in fact play a major role in the process of visualization. Marko Monteiro (2010b) has advanced this criticism of the limitations of understandings of scientific representations by pointing out the crucial role that is played by digital images in the process of scientific visualization-or "digital objects, " as they are called to emphasize their social materiality deployed in their interactions with scientists. As we have already mentioned, cyborg visuality has provided an interesting way to appreciate the role of embodied practices and the relationship between humans and instruments (computers) in the process of visualization (eg.…”

Teatro anatômico digital: práticas de representação do corpo na ciência

“…This article intends to help fill this gap by studying the contemporary practice of producing truth about the body through extensive use of images and what I call digital objects (Monteiro, 2009(Monteiro, , 2010. These objects or virtual models in 3D are 'manipulated' by scientists in order to investigate the properties of specific structures in the human body and determine their functions.…”