This is mainly an experimentation with soft bodies using toxi’s verlet springs in Processing. The first idea was to visualize the greatest empires decline. Along with that came the idea of fluid and timeless boundaries, and thus some kind of soft bodies dissolution.
Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.
Those are some screenshots displaying the springs in the system. In white we have the springs that form each shape’s skeleton. There are other more robust configurations but as the forces were minimized the shape kept it’s body like behavior. The collisions were implemented using the red springs — center to center connections that repulsed at a minimum distance.
The data refers to the evolution of the top 4 maritime empires of the XIX and XX centuries by extent. I chose the maritime empires because of their more abrupt and obtuse evolution as the visual emphasis is on their decline. The first idea to represent a territory independence was a mitosis like split — it’s harder to implement than it looks. Each shape tends to retain an area that’s directly proportional to the extent of the occupied territory on a specific year. The datasource is mostly our beloved wikipedia. The split of a territory is often the result of an extent process and it had to be visualized on a specific year. So I chose to pick the dates where it was perceived a de facto independence (e.g. the most of independence declarations prior to the new state’s recognition). Dominions of an empire, were considered part of that empire and thus not independent.
I don’t wanna call this small experiment of information visualization neither information art. Either way sounds too pretentious — as the visuals are not very sophisticated or elegant, and the way that the information is treated doesn’t enable the extraction of advanced knowledge. Although, it works very well as a ludic narrative. I ultimately found it very joyful. A direct interaction with the timeline could be a future plus!
The most interesting thing is that although not very extent, this data can be worked and displayed in several ways. More work on that, perhaps, later.
very nice! I think what you’re looking to call it (that won’t be ‘too pretentious’!) is ‘information aesthetics’…what do you think?
esp. if you’re talking about ‘joyful’ and ‘narrative’, information aesthetics seems like the perfect fit.
Ehehe, yes I could agree with that! Information aesthetics seems enough raw and vague to be the perfect fit for this piece – if we consider it’s aesthetics valuable from, for example, a ludic point of view. Interesting thoughts on your blog. I’ll start checking them! Thanks.
Simplesmente fenomenal!!
Great work! I’d love to see Germany, Russia/Soviet, United States, Japan and China incorporated as well…
Nice, but Cuba was part of the Spanish empire until 1898…it was not idependent in 1871…
Interesting. But sort of ignores the USA. Too bad it doesn’t include the biggest player of them all!!
The US absorbed several of those territories in the late 1800s. Great start but kind of a over-simplified.
Thanks for that great visual and I waited for Ireland to break off from Britain around about 1922 and got Egypt instead. Was it obscured?
impressive!!
congrats for this work, another way to explain history
Looks like Ireland is missing. Big lapse of mine. I would break it off in 1916 with its declaration of independence though. Thanks!
Very nice but somewhat hard to interpret informationally without axial guidance. I would suggest adding one axis at first and displaying one additional parameter (tying to another attribute of the data). It is amoebic as you suggest but looking at three visual attributes (color, x and y locations) that are not tied to any parameters makes it difficult to perceive – more like watch and get a sense and needing to watch more than once for details.
Brilliant idea!
In late March of 1949 the British shed themselves of Newfoundland as well.. does this not count to you because they did not become an independent nation, but rather joined the rest of Canada?
Very neat!
Do the circles touching/proximity represent anything?
I was thinking that you could have them touch, or remain in contact, any time those nations are at war.
And the ’splits’, or forming of new countries… how violent/peaceful the bubbles eject could represent how the new country was formed… a bitter civil war, or a more peaceful independence.. eg: Australia.
I would also be interesting to see a ‘larger resolution’ video.. that left all the offshoot countries floating on screen all the way to the end
Ultimately, including other world super powers would make an awesome visualisation over 500 years or so!
RB
Canada became an independent Dominion in 1867. I have a feeling you’ve used the date Newfoundland became part of Canada.
Great visuals though!
Why would you break off Ireland in 1916? Any declaration made then would have included the entire island.
Wow, this is really beautiful. I agree with some of the previous posters, it would be great to see more nations at play.
this “map” treats space as if it were a container– just because Britain “officially” does not have colonies throughout Sub-Saharan Africa does not eliminate the discursive, cultural, and economic control Britain still wields across the region. neocolonial practices continue to distort growth in the global south, create disparity and polarization, and produce spaces of uneven development. neocolonial practices continue to reproduce britian’s power that was established through the stealing of land, the exploitation of resources, the implementation of slavery and the slave trade, and the commodifcation of nature
cheers
Pretty cool visual! Some inaccuracies with the French empire stuff: you neglected to include Haitian independence in 1804 and the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
@Matthew & @green cop:
i think you may have missed the criterion for choice of separation dates: “the dates where it was perceived a[s] de facto independence”.
for both ireland and cuba, the earlier date marks an inflection point in an ultimately successful independence struggle: the point at which the independence movement exerted effective control over a significant part of the territory. in cuba’s case, full independence wasn’t accomplished until 1959 and the end of the u.s.’s effective control over the island’s government. in ireland, that point has not yet been reached, and won’t until the end of u.k. control over the six counties.
these are just longer lags than most of the ones the project shows; if it went to an earlier period, we could quibble about whether the u.s.’s independence date should be 1775 or 1781. by cruz’s criterion, the earlier date wins.
what’s puzzling to me is the strangeness of the india/pakistan depiction. the choice to show pakistan as part of the british empire until 1956, while required by the decision to show “Dominions of an empire” as part of the empire, is a bit odd in this case, since pakistan was certainly de facto independent starting in 1947. other dominions exerting de facto rule aren’t treated in quite the same way – otherwise ireland would be shown as separating from the british empire in 1949, when the free state [sic] ceased to be a dominion, and australia and canada might need to be included in the red blob until the 1980s…
Very interesting. I love the explosion as independence spreads in Africa. But you forgot Haiti from France in 1804.
Also might be interesting to see the empires growing as territories are incorporated. The European empires grew in the 19th century, particularly with the scramble for Africa. You could to throw Italy, Belgium and Germany in there as well.
This is the single most interesting thing I’ve seen in a long time. I would have liked to see the USA break away from the English and begin to expand on its own, absorb the Philippines after Spain disgorges it… This reminds me of Hans Rosling’s presentations at TED.
As somebody said before, Cuba get its independence from Spain in 1898.
And… what about the Netherlands?
Loved it,
BUT needs to include the USA empire to be meaningful.
Where to start? Louisana Purchase?
Taking all of the land from Mexico. And indeed taking land from the native indians in the beginning. Would be much more interesting and valid.
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Just great!
Thanks.
I think your work in this piece was over the roof. Great use of visualization skills and tools.
Being Portuguese, I couldn’t help noticing Portugal ended up as the smallest country that was ever a global empire. And although colonialism makes no sense today believe me, that’s something to be proud about.
Brilliant!
Whilst it would be interesting to see continental empires shown in the same way, this works beautifully in its own terms.
I would not consider Ireland to be part of a maritime empire. Similarly, most of the expansion of the USA at the expense of Spain was continental, was it not?
The lack of any possibility of a German maritime Empire was one of the factors that drove the Dreadnought arms race that led to WW1, so I wouldn’t call them a player in this particular game.
Do you have the data to do this by population rather than land area?
that would be interesting…
(even current population)
Very interesting visualisation. Disseminates quite a large amount of data in a very efficient way.
Quite surprised at how durable the Spanish and French overseas interests have been in later years.
Just on the Irish Free State independence – the 1916 rising was not a populist one – centred as it was on a small band of revolutionaries in inner city Dublin. UK forces remained in control of the country during this time – de facto control was theirs.
Violence did not break out until 1919 and the international peace treaty signed two years later marked the official split, and makes more sense from a ‘loss of territory’ point of view, as the 1916 rising whether realistic or not was an attempt at breaking the whole island away, something which obviously did not happen.
Sólo una pregunta: por qué no está el imperio Austro-Húngaro? me parece curioso. Pero si se trata de tomar estos imperios como ejemplo muy buen trabajo!
Excellent! Very interesting, visually stunning, historically compelling!
I am wondering why you chose to leave out the German and the Dutch empires. Admittedly late-comers, but important nonetheless, especially in the role they played in the “empire game” we now call WWI!
Cheers.
I noticed this is part of a master’s thesis. Are you making the Processing code available by any chance?
Thanks.
I love this, it’s so organic. But I don’t understand what the internal wobbles that occur without anything splitting off are supposed to represent. Internal conflict? Emergence of an independence movement? Change of ruler? Not war engagement, as 1914-1918 is very quiet.
hooray and thanks!
Wow! This is terrific! I look forward to seeing new iterations. Maybe one with the rise of empires? or population in place of geographical size? Maybe using data from Paul Kennedy’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kennedy) Rise and Fall of the Great Powers? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_the_Great_Powers).
Anyway, we look forward to your future creations! Thanks for this one,
David
Very nice indeed. A modest suggestion. Use much larger fonts for your labels. They are very hard to read as they are now. Thank you.
Hi Pedro,
Thank you for this great work! I want to know the size of the bubble refers to what exactly? Is it the landmass or the population occupied? Did I miss something?
I would recommend Edward Tufte’s (www.edwardtufte.com) excellent series of books on Visualising Information for those seriously interested in this type of presentation. And for the commenters who seek only to demonstrate the “superiority” of their knowledge without the capability of creating anything this original – there is no hope.
this is a really cool clip. really interesting to learn about future trends in the information field such as information visualization…keep up the good work!
and i agree with some of the other commenters: would be great to see other colonial powers as well, such as the growth of the US after 1898. cheers!
Pedro,
This is a really fantastic piece of work. I do research on societal collapse, and am currently teaching a course at Earlham College called “The American Empire: Are We Rome.” I plan on showing my students this during our next session.
Is there any chance I could get a copy of this as a mp4? Totally understand if that isn’t okay, but thought I would ask.
Great work!
Thor Hogan
Pedro
Magnifico trabajo
¿Podrias decirnos qué territorios permanecen todavía dentro de la esfera de cada imperio?
¿Al menos puedes indicarlo para el llamado “Imperio Español”?
No se que otros territorios lo componen ahora. A no ser que se entienda a sus dos archipiélagos como espacios ajenos sobre los que se ejerce una autoridad imperial.
Agradeceria tus aclaraciones.
Gracias
Pedro, un trabajo espectacular. Bravo!
Un comentario tan solo, creo que sería muy interesante que en ciertos momentos (e.g. la desintegración de los imperios inglés y francés) el video fuera a más lento para poder apreciar mejor todos los detalles. De hecho lo que sería ideal es un control de flash que permitiera establecer la velocidad
Gracias
I’m glad I found your explanation (originally seen in twitter) because I was curious why China/USA/etc weren’t included. Very cool project.
it would be great to show the US growing at some point
The rapid decline in all these empires leaves much of the screen black, however the giant elephant in the room that is gobbling up all of that (visualized) power is left off the chart. An area graph where power (as opposed to territory) is seen lost by some and gained by others would also be interesting. And would the area of the graph increase in size as global GDP and military might increase as a whole?
Love the anti-American focus in the comments. By all means, include the USA’s imperial history. But include Russia and China, too. Russia’s imperial demise was the last big event. China is still actively colonizing Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, and Inner Mongolia with ambitions to add Taiwan and Mongolia to their empire.