Since the mid-1970s, the world has witnessed the rise and rise of the so-called Big Tech Companies, the five largest companies operating in information technology. Also called GAFAM (an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft), they have been able to build intellectual property empires of technologies and systems over the past 50 years through acquisitions of companies large and small, centralizing technological innovation in them. In collaboration with Tactical Tech Collective, “GAFAM Empire” brings together a longform site analysis of more than 1,000 acquisitions to reconst ..read more

data.wikilovesmonuments.it is a visualization platform designed for Wikimedia Italia. The project is built around Wiki Loves Monuments Italy (WLM), a contest that fosters the Wikimedia Community to depict and share photographs of monuments on Wikimedia Commons, under an open license. Thanks to the visualization, it is possible to explore Italian territories and display the photographic coverage of cultural properties over different time frames. By doing so, Wikimedia staff and volunteers can address the community’s effort and organize photographic or mapping activities. The design process was ..read more

The CNRS, the Gephi Consortium and the University of Aalborg organized a one-week datathon in Paris, in collaboration with the médialab at the SciencePo. Along with volunteers from the community that maintains Gephi, the open source software used to visualize networks, we participated to identify ways to improve some aspects of the tool. More in detail, we focused specifically on the modularity algorithm, which allows to identify communities of nodes inside a network that share connections between one another. The algorithm is widely used by the community that uses Gephi, as it lets perform v ..read more

  Atlante Calvino. Literature and Visualization is a web platform through which it is possible to visually explore the corpus of narrative writings of Italo Calvino and learn about a series of literary inquiries conducted on his production. The project lasted from 2017 to 2020 and it allowed designers and scholars to work together and to understand how to readapt tools and practices of data visualization in support of interpretive thinking. Differently from many other disciplines that exploit visualization, humanities work is based on qualitative judgements and ambiguous information. In ..read more

Abstract The research is developed around the contemporary debate on LGBT parenting: a current, delicate and controversial issue. The thesis aims to investigate how the discussion occurs, analyzing the arguments supported by each side to fully understand the reasons that lead to the clash of opinions. First of all, I will conduct a historical investigation to understand how the perception of homosexuality and the discussion about it has changed over time. Then, I will analyze some reliable sources to outline which is the visible image portrayed by official data at national, european and g ..read more

Poliscope is a close collaboration between the communication department of Politecnico di Milano and DensityDesign Research Lab.  Poliscope aims to present data about different dimensions of Politecnico di Milano, with a collection of interactive visualisations. Between June 2017 and December 2019 the team from DensityDesign designed and developed an interactive application, running on 4k screens placed in key points around Leonardo and Bovisa campuses in Milan.   The views https://densitydesign.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/interface.mp4 Poliscope is a modular and adaptable applic ..read more

When investigating how we frame technology in the design process, and specifically technology that produces data, I found this publication by Lars Hallnäs and Johan Redström, published in 2003 in the journal “ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction”. The article raises a few key points that are instrumental to research the role we, as researchers and designers, have in introducing new technologies to the general public. In particular, the authors highlight the complementarity between “use” and “presence” of technological objects, and how we have extensive methods and techniques to evalu ..read more

This track investigates and explores ways to make visible the systems, infrastructures, and power relations that exist around the actors and entities that control and use personal data, in order to design communication artifacts that inform a broad public. Based on data and research, this track experiments with data visualization and narratives for engaging and informing diverse publics.   Rather than giving specific topics, this line of research is open to students with like-minded interests and motivations. Some example of previous thesis are: research thesis Anna Gazza — Invisibl ..read more

The project provides a visual representation of the creative process followed by Gustave Roud in the making of some of his most famous literary works. We refer to these visualizations with the phrase “genetic networks”, because they support scholars in inquiring the genesis of literary works. This work is part of the bigger initiative entitled Gustave Roud, «Œuvres complètes», funded by the FNS. The project draws from a meticulous collection conducted on the archive of Roud by Daniel Maggetti, Elena Spadini, Alessio Christen, plus collaborators from the Université de Lausanne. They examined d ..read more

RAWGraphs is used in many academic resources. In many of them it is directly cited, in others just mentioned. This allows us to check who used the software, in which field, with what purpose, and using which visual model. The thesis aim is to assess the current adoption of the tool, by analysing the areas, usages, and visual models. The expected outcome is a curated dataset of cases and its representation as a digital or static collection of visualisations. For more information write to michele.mauri@polimi.it ..read more