(Re)configurar o arquivo: experiências em visualização e exploração da produção académica em Design de Comunicação

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the digital archive, seeking to represent its content through the exploration of visualization models. The research is developed according to a theoretical and analytical approach, which informs the construction of the design project component, developed according to an experimental approach to the visualization and interactive ex-ploration of the academic production of the Master’s Degree in Communication Design. To this end, the research begins by introducing the archive as a discursive system and as a technology of containment and power. It frames the (re)configuration of the archive as a digital medium, its computational management and online accessibility. By discussing technical and curatorial implications of digital archives, it highlighs the emergence of new, procedural, dynamic and open archive models that become active agents in the me-diation of memory. The study then discusses the modes of presentation, representation and interactive ex-ploration of the archive’s content, with the aim of enhancing the discourse it conveys. It contextualizes information and data visualization, highlighting the stages necessary for its construction, both in terms of the treatment and processing of content and in terms of its representation and modes of interactive exploration. It then proceeds to an evaluation of the foundational work that motivated this dissertation and project, as well as an analy-sis of complementary projects that can inform the practical component of the study. Based on this theoretical framework and the guidelines drawn from the analytical com-ponent, the Arquivo MDC project was created with the aim of developing and combining ways of visualizing and emphasizing the themes reflected by the academic production of the Master’s Degree in Communication Design at FBAUL. In this manner, the Arquivo MDC explores the discursive dimension of the archive and its positioning in relation to the community it represents and for which it is intended.