The acronym TMI (too much information) has become commonplace in our information and data saturated climate. Everyone should know everything. And what complicates the flow of the scent is that the majority of people in the media and on the internet are happy to share what they know. Multiply billions of bytes of minutiae by minutes in a year, and add to that the absolutely necessary facts and figures we need to know, and servers around the world are in danger of exploding one day soon.
In the 1920s, pictorial statistics, now known as data visualization, began as a way to re-educate societies and inform the masses through accessible and understandable signs and symbols. Visual languages have gone from the most complex to the most reductive.
Among my favorite infographics, and I say this with all sincerity, is a little book by O. Spurgeon English MD called Personality manifestations in psychosomatic illnesses: visual aid charts for psychotherapypublished in 1952. Unfortunately, the illustrator is anonymous, but he deserves praise for describing in expressive pictorial terms how psychology and psychopathology interact with human behavior.
This may sound like it’s from a graphic novel, but it’s dead serious. Nevertheless, despite the uniqueness of vividly illustrating these manifested issues and their impact on all parts of the body, from the gastrointestinal tract to the emotional center of the brain, what we have here is arguably a form of visual IMT.
That said, even though medical art has improved a lot, there is something refreshing about these raw art paintings. They don’t fire shots. Characterizations may or may not represent you or me on the outside, but on the inside there is something so truthful here that is boldly sublime. Thank your Mr. Data Visualizer, whoever you are.
