Abstract
This poster introduces some of the rhetorical and ethical dimensions that underpin
the graphics and visuals designed to illustrate results from a computer simulation.
Simulations have been used by meteorologists to predict and report weather behavior,
by climatologists to forewarn about the inevitable damage that global warning will
cause, and by government officials to foresee the potential destruction of a major
hurricane. In particular, my poster examines the latter — a set of visuals from
Hurricane Pam, a computer simulation and set of training exercises that predicted the
devastation that Hurricane Katrina would cause one year prior to the tragedy. FEMA
conducted preparation workshops for state and local officials, arming them with
workbooks with projection maps, conceptual models, and other visuals meant to help
ready them. This poster seeks to understand what part the visuals might have played
in preparation failure.
Poster Abstract
This poster introduces some of the rhetorical and ethical dimensions that underpin
the graphics and visuals designed to illustrate results from a computer simulation.
Simulations have been used by meteorologists to predict and report weather behavior,
by climatologists to forewarn about the inevitable damage that global warning will
cause, and by government officials to foresee the potential destruction of a major
hurricane. In particular, my poster examines the latter — a set of visuals from
Hurricane Pam, a computer simulation and set of training exercises that predicted the
devastation that Hurricane Katrina would cause one year prior to the tragedy. FEMA
conducted preparation workshops for state and local officials, arming them with
workbooks with projection maps, conceptual models, and other visuals meant to help
ready them. This poster seeks to understand what part the visuals might have played
in preparation failure.
The poster raises questions pertaining to the nature and ethics of the simulated
illustration, first by engaging simulated visuals in terms of visual rhetoric, or
their capacity to persuade. Computer simulations are meant to stand-in for the real
thing. Simulated visuals represent virtual events in much the same way that
photographs represent actual events. However, since simulated visuals represent
predictions, they vary in the extent to which they capture all of the fine-grained
surface details of the source — the more accurate the simulation, the more the
simulated visual can have the realistic value of photographs (or what Benjamin calls
“aura” or authenticity). Unfortunately, in the case of visuals from Hurricane
Pam, design decisions further removed the representations from the
potential tragedy.
The poster also broaches issues of visual ethics. If simulated visuals parallel
photographs, then do they have capacity for photographic truth? In some cases, even
when simulated visuals are not perfect replicas, they still manage to convey a
virtual truth sufficient to teach and inform audiences. In the case of Hurricane
Pam’s maps and illustrations, major design elements did not paint a humane, complex,
or realistic enough picture to help prepare workshop attendees. The poster explores
these questions and draws some basic conclusions about the verisimilitude and
veracity of simulation visuals.
Poster
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poster (PDF file)
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