Information+ Schedule Keynotes Contributions Breaks Workshops Code of Conduct About

Information+ is an interdisciplinary conference that brings together researchers, educators, and practitioners in information design and data visualization to discuss common questions and challenges in these rapidly changing fields. Information+ seeks to foster productive exchanges amongst the variety of people involved in the theories, practices and pedagogies of analyzing and communicating information.

Information+ will be held online between 27th September – 1st October, 2021 at minimal cost to attendees. Building on the experiences from the previous installments of Information+ 2016 at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver and Information+ 2018 at University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, we seek to significantly broaden the base of our interdisciplinary community. We are working to design a new kind of online event for the Information+ community; it will not be a typical online conference. We will be posting regular updates about our plans for the format as they develop.

In 2020, Information+ was scheduled to be held in-person at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia (USA). Due to the risks posed by COVID-19, that event was cancelled. The 2021 online format is intended to enable the safest and most inclusive possible event, given continued uncertainties about the viability of large in-person gatherings.

Remote, but real-time

Information+ will take place remotely between 27 Sept. and 1 Oct. via Zoom. Each day of the conference will include two sets of live conversations with breaks in between during a 3-hour window, from 9 am – 12 pm EST. We hope that this conference schedule eases participation across most time zones. Presenters will engage in conversations that will be open for questions by the attendees. The accepted contributions are shared as pre-recorded videos ahead of the live event. As usual, there will be plenty of breaks for participants to meet and mingle.

Information+ is committed to enabling a diverse, inclusive and respectful environment where all participants can learn, network, and enjoy planned activities. We are dedicated to a harassment-free experience for everyone. For this purpose, all participants are required to agree with our code of conduct.

Schedule

The schedule below is for the live events during the conference. You can watch the pre-recorded talks and  welcome message at your own time.

Conference Timezone

Atlanta (America/New York)

Your Timezone

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7:00am

8:00am

9:00am

10:00am

11:00am

12:00pm

1:00pm

2:00pm

7:00am

8:00am

9:00am

10:00am

11:00am

12:00pm

1:00pm

2:00pm

Mon, 27 Sep

9:00am - 10:00am
9:00am - 10:00am
Keynote conversation

(Mis)Organizing Information

11:00am - 12:00pm
11:00am - 12:00am
Author conversation

Visualizing Uncertainty

12:30pm - 1:30pm
12:30am - 1:30pm
Workshop

Unsettling Boundaries Through Data

Tue, 28 Sep

9:00am - 10:00am
9:00am - 10:00am
Author conversation

Getting Critical

11:00am - 12:00pm
11:00am - 12:00am
Author conversation

Reframing Maps

Wed, 29 Sep

7:00am - 8:30am
7:00am - 8:30am
Workshop

Open Data Visualizations with RAWGraphs 2.0

9:00am - 10:00am
9:00am - 10:00am
Author conversation

Rethinking Practice

11:00am - 12:00pm
11:00am - 12:00am
Author conversation

Communicating Science

Thu, 30 Sep

9:00am - 10:00am
9:00am - 10:00am
Author conversation

Deliberating Health

11:00am - 12:00pm
11:00am - 12:00am
Author conversation

Getting Physical

Fri, 1 Oct

7:00am - 8:30am
7:00pm - 8:30am
Workshop

Open Data Visualizations with RAWGraphs 2.0

9:00am - 10:00am
9:00am - 10:00am
Keynote conversation

On Maps

11:00am - 12:00pm
11:00am - 12:00am
Closing & Summary
12:30pm - 1:30pm
12:30am - 1:30pm
Workshop

Unsettling Boundaries Through Data

Keynote conversations

photo of Shannon Mattern photo of Kameelah Janan Rasheed

(Mis)Organizing Information

Shannon Mattern, The New School

Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Learner

This conversation brings together Kameelah Janan Rasheed, a learner who explores the poetics and politics of the unfinished and uncategorized through her sprawling installations, public art, publications, poems, other forms yet to be determined; and Shannon Mattern, a Professor of Anthropology at The New School, who has written books, taught classes, and worked with community groups on projects about maps, libraries, archives, media architectures and infrastructures, and urban data. We’ll address such themes as: how the designed world materializes humans’ and other species’ means of (mis)organizing information, miscommunication, and the productivity of error, ambiguity, and opacity.

photo of Margaret Pearce photo of Marty Schnure

On Maps

Margaret Pearce, Studio 1:1

Marty Schnure, The Wilderness Society and Maps for Good

What are the impacts we seek when we map, and how do we shape our work to make those impacts possible? What are the barriers? What is the role of collaboration, and what does good collaboration look like? These questions are our focus. We are two women cartographers in the United States. Margaret Pearce is an independent cartographer and owner of Studio 1:1. Marty Schnure leads cartography and spatial analysis at The Wilderness Society and co-founded Maps for Good. Though we belong to different generations, and work in different spheres, we both approach cartography with a strong sense of purpose and commitment. In this conversation we discuss the intentions that guide our work and explore the meaning of responsibility as it manifests in the process, form, and technique of representing spatial data.

Contributions: Author conversations

Breaks: Conversation rooms

In keeping with the conversation-based conference format, there will be an opportunity each day (10-11am EST) for attendees to engage in impromptu activities together, some of which will be moderated. These will occur in a variety of breakout rooms in Zoom. In order to stimulate lively and even unconventional conference interactions, these breakout rooms will have their own themes. Some of these, we have developed ourselves. Alternative breakout rooms can be proposed up to a day beforehand by attendees, as long as they are willing to moderate if necessary.


Unmoderated breakout rooms on a daily basis

  • Presenter Room: Meet the presenters of the day
  • Lunch Room: Eat and/or drink together
  • Share Room: Show your latest design work
  • Family Room: Invite your children to say hello
  • Zoo Room: Introduce your pets
  • Walking Room: Go outside, while staying connected (voice only)
  • Silent Room: For those who need to respond to e-mails
  • Screening Room: (Re)watch the videos for the afternoon session

Moderated breakout rooms on particular days

  • Drawing Room: Participate in various drawing activities with Isabel Meirelles (Tuesday, Sep 28)
  • Baking Room: Exchange bread recipes with Marian Dörk (Wednesday, Sep 29)
  • Reading Room: Share favorite passages with Yanni Loukissas (Thursday, Sep 30)
  • Map Room: Share your maps-in-progress with Clio Andris and receive feedback. Please submit your files, name, and affiliation via this form or by email (Friday, Oct 1)

Stay tuned!

Let us know if you would like to facilitate your own conversation room. Email us a short description of the room and an evocative title split by a colon. We will update the information on these rooms as new ones are proposed and opened by participants.

Workshops

The workshops at Information+ offer a hands-on, conversational, and empowering opportunity to acquire new skills, interact with other participants, and engage in vibrant discussions. Sign-up was part of registration. All seats are now taken.

Unsettling Boundaries Through Data

Sylvia Janicki and Shubhangi Gupta, Georgia Institute of Technology

Cover for the Unsettling Boundaries Through Data Workshop

What are the spatial, temporal and cultural boundaries that shape our experiences of cities? Who experiences these boundaries and when? How do boundaries in the city segregate publics and work to exclude differences in publics? In this workshop, we invite participants to create, analyze and visualize data about the urban environment to understand and question boundaries that demarcate cities materially, conceptually, and or experientially.

The workshop will consist of two data walks where participants collect data about their experiences. These data walks are followed by small group discussions in which participants analyze the data and place it in social, political, and historical contexts. Participants will further reflect upon who created the data, how the data was created, and the place and time the data was created in. Drawing upon the walks and subsequent discussions, the participants will represent their experience through the design of feminist data visualizations. More broadly, participants critically engage with the presence and functionings of boundaries in the city with an eye toward questions of equity and social justice.

The workshop is open to students, scholars, practitioners, activists or anyone interested in data and cities. No prior experience in design or data visualization is needed.

Maximum number of participants: 12

Open Data Visualizations with RAWGraphs 2.0

Michele Mauri and Tommaso Elli, Politecnico di Milano

Cover for the RAWGraphs Workshop

Despite the proliferation of visualization tools, what these software produce is usually “boxed” within the the logics of the applications with limited flexibility. In response, RAWGraphs is a web application aimed at the creation of “open outputs”: semi-finished visualizations exportable in editable formats. The outputs are designed to be further edited, so we can take advantage of vector graphic editors (like Inkscape, Figma or Illustrator), allowing users to rework and make the visualization perfect for the target context. In addition, RAWGraphs enables the use of Javascript to add interactivity and to facilitate incorporating the visualizations in web projects.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to use RAWGraphs to produce semi-finished visualizations and to refine them to suit their specific needs through guided hands-on exercises.

The workshop is structured around two moments, for a total of circa 3 hours. Firstly we introduce and work with the application and secondly we demonstrate the fine-tuning and publishing of visualizations using other tools. After a brief introduction, instructors will guide participants through a series of hands-on exercises centered around importing data, creating visualizations, and adapting them for printed and interactive outputs. Some open datasets will be available for use, but participants are free to bring their own data!

We welcome participants who are passionate about graphic design and open source. Coding knowledge is not mandatory, especially if you want to focus on printed visualizations, but if you have some you will be able to experiment with interactivity.

Maximum number of participants: 15

Code of conduct

All participants are required to agree with the following code of conduct. Organizers will enforce this code throughout the event. We expect cooperation from all participants to help ensure a safe environment for everybody.

Our conference is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks, workshops, breakout rooms, and other online media. Conference participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organizers.

Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion, technology choices, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, and unwelcome sexual attention.

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the conference organizers may take any action they deem appropriate, including warning the offender or expulsion from the conference with no refund.

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of the organizing team immediately. Organizers can be identified as they are co-hosts on the Zoom call. You can also send an email to the organizers.

The conference organizers will be happy to help participants and assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference. We value your attendance.

We expect participants to follow these rules throughout the entire conference, all workshop activities, and conference-related social events.

About

Information+ 2021 is made possible through the help and support of many people and partnering organizations.

Organizers

Yanni Loukissas, Georgia Tech

Marian Dörk, FH Potsdam

Isabel Meirelles, OCAD University

Chairs

Catherine D'Ignazio, MIT

Lauren Klein, Emory University

Michele Mauri, Politecnico di Milano

Nassim Parvin, Georgia Tech

Romi Ron Morrison, University of Southern California

Website

Beatrice Gobbo, Tommaso Elli and Andrea Benedetti, Politecnico di Milano

Program Committee

Angela Iarocci, Sheridan College

Angela Norwood, York University

Angus Forbes, University of California, Santa Cruz

Anne Luther, MARKK

Arvind Satyanarayan, MIT

Carl DiSalvo, Georgia Tech

Carla Spinillo, Universidade Federal do Paraná

Catherine D'Ignazio, MIT

Chad Skelton, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Charles Perin, University of Victoria

Christopher Collins, UOIT

Clio Andris, Georgia Tech

Danielle Szafir, University of Colorado Boulder

Dietmar Offenhuber, Northeastern University

Dominikus Baur, do.minik.us

Doris Kosminsky, Universidade Federal do RJ

Eric Kindel, The University of Reading

Heather Corcoran, Washington University in St. Louis

Ilia Blinderman, Pudding.cool

Jagoda Walny, Canada Energy Regulator

Jan Willem Tulp, TULP interactive

Jason Dykes, City, University of London

Jeremy Boy, UNDP

Jessica Bellamy, Root Cause Research Center

Jessica Roberts, Georgia Tech

John Stasko, Georgia Tech

Jorge Frascara, University of Alberta

Karel Van-Der-Waarde, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne

Katherine Gillieson, Emily Carr University

Katherine Hepworth, University of Nevada

Kennedy Elliott, National Geographic

Laura Perovich, MIT

Lauren Klein, Emory University

Lisa Charlotte Muth, Datawrapper

Lynn Cherny, Ghostweather R&D

Maarten Lambrechts, Freelance

María de los Ángeles Briones, Politecnico di Milano

Maria-Gonzalez deCossio, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana

Matthew Brehmer, Tableau

Meghan Kelly, University of Wisconsin

Michele Mauri, Politecnico di Milano

Miriah Meyer, Linköping University

Mitchell Whitelaw, Australian National University

Moritz Stefaner, Truth & Beauty

Mushon Zer-Aviv, Shenkar School of Engineering and Design

Nicole Catherine Coleman, Stanford University

Olivia Vane, British Library

Paolo Ciuccarelli, Northeastern University

Pedro Cruz, Northeastern University

Rahul Bhargava, Northeastern University

Rico Chapman, Clark Atlanta University

Robert Kosara, Tableau

Rodrigo Medeiros, Inst. Fed. de Educação Ciência e Tecnologia, Paraíba

Romina Colman, La Nacion

Romi-Ron Morrison, USC

Rupesh Mansi Vyas, Aalto University

Sarah Goodwin, Monash University

Siqi Zhu, Sidewalk Labs

Skye Moret, Pacific Northwest College of Art

Stacie Rohrbach, Carnegie Mellon, School of Design

Stephen Boyd Davis, RCA

Tamara Munzner, UBC

Till Nagel, Mannheim University of Applied Sciences

Tim Stallmann, RAD Cat

Uta Hinrichs, University of Edinburgh

Valentina D'Efilippo, The Economist

Veronika Egger, IIID – International Institute for Information Design

Vincent Brown, Harvard University

Yuri Engelhardt, University of Amsterdam

Contact

For updates, find us on Twitter: @InfoPlusConf

For mentions, use the hashtag: #infoplus2021

For questions, please email us: admin@informationplusconference.com


Thanks to Noah Veltman for the beautiful flocking boids
… and to Conference Code of Conduct for the template.