{"product_id":"beautiful-data-9780822357445","title":"Beautiful Data","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003ci\u003eBeautiful Data\u003c\/i\u003e is both a history of big data and interactivity, and a sophisticated meditation on ideas about vision and cognition in the second half of the twentieth century. Contending that our forms of attention, observation, and truth are contingent and contested, Orit Halpern historicizes the ways that we are trained, and train ourselves, to observe and analyze the world. Tracing the postwar impact of cybernetics and the communication sciences on the social and human sciences, design, arts, and urban planning, she finds a radical shift in attitudes toward recording and displaying information. These changed attitudes produced what she calls communicative objectivity: new forms of observation, rationality, and economy based on the management and analysis of data. Halpern complicates assumptions about the value of data and visualization, arguing that changes in how we manage and train perception, and define reason and intelligence, are also transformations in governmental\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Overall... this is quite an interesting read, illustrating how a single idea (cybernetics) can permeate all walks of life, at least for a time.\" -- Alexander von Lünen * British Journal for the History of Science *\u003cbr\u003e\"...Halpern’s brilliant and blow-by-blow exposition on the transformation of our sense and reason in \u003ci\u003eBeautiful Data \u003c\/i\u003ecertainly enriches our critical and historical understanding of important parts of contemporary society. This book contributes to the fields of communication studies, media studies, and science, technology and society (STS), as well as the history of science.\" -- Yasuhito Abe * International Journal of Communication *\u003cbr\u003e\"Bringing together the history of science with studies of media, affect, and aesthetics, \u003ci\u003eBeautiful Data\u003c\/i\u003e offers a compelling account of the epistemological infrastructures of the digital that have, since 1945, radically changed the ways we see, interpret, and think.\" -- Jessica Hurley * American Literature *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBeautiful Data\u003c\/i\u003e is an innovative, informative and highly enjoyable read for those who often find themselves hovering between disciplinary fields, offering a reflective history of early cybernetics, art, design, psychology and political science. Halpern guides her readers gracefully thorugh a history of interactivity between humans and machines, the archive and the interface.\" -- Amanda Tully * Science \u0026amp; Technology Studies *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBeautiful Data\u003c\/i\u003e will no doubt comprise a critical touchstone for future reflections on 'big data' and where it is taking us.\" -- Hallam Stevens * Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences *\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eBeautiful Data\u003c\/i\u003e is a significant work of contemporary theory . . . [that] lends difficult, rich new insights to unthought histories of digital perception, and to possible futures we might not only long for but actively build.\" -- Jackie Orr * Isis *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgments        vii   Prologue. Speculating on Sense        1   Introduction. Dreams for Our Perceptual Present        9   1. Archiving. Temporality, Storage, and Interactivity in Cybernetics        39   2. Visualizing. Design, Communicative Objectivity, and the Interface        79   3. Rationalizing. Cognition, Time, and Logic in the Social and Behavioral Sciences        145   4. Governing. Designing Information and Reconfiguring Population circa 1959        199   Conclusion        239   Epilogue        251   Notes        271   Bibliography        307   Index        327\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48866012660055,"sku":"9780822357445","price":21.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822357445.jpg?v=1722276621","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/beautiful-data-9780822357445","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}