#short composition

Last night I wrote a short composition over the course of 40 minutes, inspired by a Haydn piano sonata as well as drawing from my own past work. It has to have been the best God-given strike of inspiration I’ve ever experienced. 

The final synthy short of the year and for this project! This last one was special. I had other people make the synth tracks. From there, my job was to combine them all together to get a cohesive short. I played with volume, panning, and added a little beat to it. I think it turned out okay!

Middle English enforme, informe ‘give form or shape to,’ also ‘form the mind of, teach,’ from Old French enfourmer, from Latin informare ‘shape, fashion, describe,’ from in- ‘into’ + forma ‘a form.’

Introduction to In-Formation

We can begin with a set of pressing questions:

what does an infographic do?

how does an infographic does it?

why does an infographic do it?

The answer to each question, for starters, needs to be more complex than “to simplify,” “to convey”, or “to dumb down” information. We here aim for a strong defense of infographics. As with all technologies, all media, infographics are not merely conveyances: neutral ways of transmitting data.

A research at MIT's Tangible Media Group moves his handed over a manipulateable, three-dimensional data set.

To begin shaping a more complex answers to these questions we can say that infographics inform audiences in specific ways and for indentifiable ends. Infographics compose (as the root graphic suggests) information, which is itself a generative and effecting composition. In-formation, which I will hyphenate for effect, literally gives form. As the epigrammed etymology makes clear, to in-form is to “give form or sharp to.” Additionally, to in-form is to “teach” or “fashion.” In-formation is only in-forming if it in-forms. Furthermore, in-forming generates effects: like teaching and fashioning, in-forming does things to people. Not even information, to recall my least favorite expression, is just sayin’. This insight can be found in Simone C. Niquille’s “SimFactory”, where she argues

Translating the human body into numbers is used and abused as an instrument of power and control, enforcing quantitative transparency against the foreign and unknown Other; it has served to rationalize racial, genetic, and body discrimination with horrific consequences.

No-thing and no-one is ever just sayin’. Another way of saying what I am saying is to say that whatever it is, in-formation doesn’t pre-exist its being in-formed.

John Snow’s cholera map, which he used to demonstrate that tainted water, rather than bad air, was the source of the outbreak.

Look at the examples I have supplied in my sample Short Composition 4: the in-formation of the “ghost map” is the ghost map. And the in-formation in and of the ghost map only makes sense, only works, in that form. The (in)form is the content. The ghost map doesn’t convey; the ghost map constitutes. This is a strong defense of in-formation.

An infographic mapping Batman’s Rogues Gallery as a set of foils for Batman’s character.

All of this leads us to strong defense of infographics. An infographic uses the affordances of visual design to give form to in-formation in ways that spark a reaction in readers. Infographics can be used to excite readers, engage readers in a unfamiliar topic, or spur readers to act in response to some problem or issue. Non-profit organizations use infographics to generate attention to a cause; businesses use infographics to cultivate a customer base; and teachers use infographics to guide students through difficult readings (and not just to waste color ink).

Short Composition Four Prompt