Representation and visualization

With the rise of digital technology, diagrams and visualizations have become widespread. But has this shift changed not just the number of visual artifacts but also how we create them? This chapter explores how the computational turn has transformed the way we design, use, and understand visual representations in research and beyond. Rather than focusing only on final results - like maps, charts, and diagrams - it examines how digitization shapes the creation process. It introduces the idea of undirected documents to highlight the two-step process of representation passing through the form of data. The chapter examines three key ways in which the computational turn interacts with visualization design: as a mediator, as a way to expose processes, and as support. It also compares past limitations of physical media with the new, often less obvious, constraints of digital media. These ideas are explored by presenting and contextualizing examples from Digital and Computational Social Sciences and Humanities (DCSSH) projects.