A visual history of human knowledge

Over the past 10 years,

I've been researching the way

people organize and visualize information,

and I've noticed an interesting shift.

For a long period of time,

we believe in a natural ranking order
in the world around us,

also known as the great chain of being,
or scala naturae in Latin,

a top-down structure that normally starts
with God at the very top,

followed by angels, noblemen,

common people, animals, and so on.

This idea was actually based

on Aristotle's Ontology,

which classified all things known to man

in a set of opposing categories
like the ones you see behind me.

But over time, interestingly enough,

this concept adopted
the branching schema of a tree

in what became known as
the Porphyrian tree,

also considered to be
the oldest tree of knowledge.

The branching scheme of the tree
was in fact such a powerful metaphor

for conveying information

that it became, over time,
an important communication tool

to map a variety of systems of knowledge.

We can see trees being used
to map morality,

with the popular Tree of Virtues
and Tree of Vices,

as you can see here with these beautiful
illustrations from medieval Europe.

We can see trees being used
to map consanguinity,

the various blood ties between people.

We can also see trees being used
to map genealogy,

perhaps the most famous
archetype of the tree diagram.

I think many of you in the audience
have probably seen family trees.

Many of you probably even
have your own family trees

drawn in such a way.

We can see trees even mapping
systems of law,

the various decrees and rulings

of kings and rulers.

And finally, of course,
also very popular scientific metaphor,

we can see trees being used
to map all the species known to man.

And trees ultimately became
such a powerful visual metaphor

because in many ways, it really
embodied this human desire

for order, for balance,
for unity, for symmetry.

However, nowadays we are really facing
newly complex, intricate challenges

that cannot be understood by simply
employing a simple tree diagram.

And a new metaphor is currently emerging,

and it's currently replacing the tree

in visualizing various
systems of knowledge.

It's really providing us with a new lens
to understand the world around us.

And this new metaphor

is the metaphor of the network,

and we can see this shift

from trees into networks

in many domains of knowledge.

We can see this shift in the way
we try to understand the brain.

Well, before we used to think of the brain
as a modular, centralized organ

where a given area was responsible
for a set of actions and behaviors.

The more we know about the brain,
the more we think of it

as a large music symphony

played by hundreds
and thousands of instruments.

This is a beautiful snapshot
created by the Blue Brain Project

where you can see ten thousand neurons
and 30 million connections,

and this is only mapping 10 percent
of a mammalian neocortex.

We can also see this shift in the way
we try to conceive human knowledge.

These are some remarkable
trees of knowledge, or trees of science

by Spanish scholar Ramon Llull,

and Llull was actually the precursor,

the very first one who created
the metaphor of science as a tree,

a metaphor we use every single day

when we say,
"Biology is a branch of science,"

when we say,
"Genetics is a branch of science."

But perhaps the most beautiful of all
trees of knowledge, at least for me,

was created for the French Encyclopedie
by Diderot and D'Alembert in 1751.

This was really the bastion
of the French Enlightenment,

and this gorgeous illustration
was featured as a table of contents

for the Encyclopedia.

And it actually illustrates, it maps out
all domains of knowledge

as separate branches of a tree.

But knowledge is much
more intricate than this.

These are two maps of Wikipedia

showing the interlinkage of articles

related to history on the left

and mathematics on the right,

and I think by looking at these maps

and other ones that I've
been creating on Wikipedia,

arguably one of the largest
risomatic structures ever created by man,

we can really understand
how human knowledge

is much more intricate and interdependent,

just like a network.

We can also see this interesting shift

in the way we map
social ties between people.

This is the typical organization chart.

I'm assuming many of you have seen
a similar chart as well

in your own corporations, or others.

It's a top-down structure that normally
starts with the CEO at the very top

and where you can drill down all the way
to the individual workman on the bottom.

But humans sometimes are, well, actually,
all humans are unique in their own way,

and sometimes you really don't play well
under this really rigid structure.

I think the Internet is really changing
this paradigm quite a lot.

This is a fantastic map
of online social collaboration

between Pearl developers,

and Pearl is a famous
programming language,

and here you can see how
different programmers

are actually exchanging files

and working together
on a given project.

And here you can notice that this is
a completely decentralized process.

There's no leader in this organization.

It's a network.

We can also see this interesting shift

when we look at terrorism.

One of the main challenges
of understanding terrorism nowadays

is that we are dealing with decentralized,
independent cells

where there's no leader
leading the whole process,

and here you can actually see
how visualizations are being used.

The diagram that you see behind me

is showing all the terrorists
involved in the Madrid attack in 2004,

and what they did here is that
they actually segmented the network

into three different years

represented by the vertical layers
that you see behind me.

And the blue lines tie together

the people that were present
in that network year after year.

So even though there's no leader per se,

these people are probably the most
influential ones in that organization,

the ones that know more about the past

and the future plans and goals
of this particular cell.

We can also see this shift
from trees into networks

in the way we classify
and organize species.

The image on the right

is the only illustration
that Darwin included

in "The Origin of Species,"

which Darwin called the Tree of Life.

And there's actually a letter
from Darwin to the publisher

expanding on the importance
of this particular diagram.

It was critical for Darwin's
theory of evolution.

But recently, scientists discovered
that overlaying this tree of life

is a dense network of bacteria,

and these bacteria is actually
tying together species

that were completed separated before,

to what scientists are calling
not the tree of life but the web of life,

the network of life.

And finally, we can really
see this shift again

when we look at ecosystems
around our planet.

No more do we have this simplified
predator-versus-prey diagrams

we have all learned at school.

This is a much more accurate
depiction of an ecosystem.

This is a diagram created
by Professor David Lavigne

mapping close to 100 species
that interact with a codfish

off the coast of Newfoundland in Canada.

And I think here we can really understand
the intricate an interdependent nature

of most ecosystems
that are bound to our planet.

But even though recent,

this metaphor,
the metaphor of the network,

is really already adopting
various shapes and forms,

and it's almost becoming
a growing visual taxonomy.

It's almost becoming
the syntax of a new language.

And this is one aspect
that truly fascinates me.

And these are actually
15 different typologies

I've been collecting over time,

and it really shows the immense
visual diversity of this new metaphor.

And here is an example.

The first, on the very first top, band,

you have radio convergence,

a visualization model that has become
really popular over the last five years.

And the top left, the very first project,

is a gene network,

followed by a network
of IP addresses, machine servers,

followed by a network of Facebook friends.

You probably couldn't find
more disparate topics,

yet they are using the same metaphor,

the same visual model to map

the never-ending complexities
of its own subject.

And here are a few more examples
of the many I've been collecting

of this growing visual
taxonomy of networks.

But networks are not
just a scientific metaphor.

As designers, researchers, and scientists

try to map a variety of complex systems,

they are in many ways influencing
traditional art fields

like painting and sculpture,
and influencing many different artists.

And perhaps because networks

have this huge [??] force to them,

they are immensely gorgeous,

they are really becoming a cultural meme

and driving a new art movement,
which I've called "Networkism."

And we can see this influence
in this movement in a variety of ways.

This is just one of many examples

where you can see this influence
from science into art.

The example on your left side
is IP mapping,

a computer-generated map of IP addresses,
again servers, machine.

And on your right side, you have

"Transient Structures and Unstable Networks"
by Sharon Malloy,

using oil and enamel on canvas.

And here are a few
more paintings by Sharon Malloy,

some gorgeous, intricate paintings.

And here's another example
of that interesting cross-pollination

between science and art.

On your left side,
you have "Operation Smile."

It is a computer-generated map
of a social network.

And on your right side,
you have "Field 4" by Emma McNally,

using only graphite on paper.

Emma McNally is one of the main
leaders of this movement,

and she creates these striking,
imaginary landscapes

where you can really notice the influence
from traditional network visualization.

But Networkism doesn't happen
only in two dimensions.

This is perhaps one of
my favorite projects

of this new movement,

and I think the title really says it all.

It's called "Galaxies
Forming Along Filaments,

Like Droplets Along
the Strands of a Spider's Web."

And I just find this particular project
to be immensely powerful.

It was created by Tomas Saraceno,

and he occupies these large spaces,

creates these massive installations
using only elastic ropes.

As you actually navigate that space
and bounce along those elastic ropes,

the entire network kind of shifts,
almost like a real organic network would.

And here's yet another example of Networkism
taken to a whole different level.

This was created by
Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota

in a piece called "In Silence."

And Chiharu, like Tomas Saraceno,
fills these rooms with this dense network,

this dense web of elastic ropes
and black wool and thread,

sometimes including objects
as you can see here,

sometimes including people
in many of her installations.

But networks are also
not just a new trend,

and it's too easy for us
to dismiss it as such.

Networks really embody notions
of decentralization,

of interconnectedness, of interdependence.

And this new way of thinking is critical

for us to solve many of the complex
problems we are facing nowadays,

from decoding the human brain

to understanding the vast
universe out there.

On your left side, you have a snapshot
of a neural network of a mouse,

very similar to our own
at this particular scale,

and on your right side, you have
the Millennium Simulation.

It was the largest
and most realistic simulation

of the growth of cosmic structure.

It was able to recreate the history
of 20 million galaxies

in approximately 25 terabytes of output.

And coincidentally or not,

I just find this particular comparison

between the smallest scale
of knowledge, the brain,

and the largest scale
of knowledge, the Universe itself,

to be really, really quite striking
and fascinating.

Because as Bruce Mau once said,

"When everything is connected
to everything else,

for better or for worse,
everything matters."

Thank you so much.

(Applause)