There is an interesting article on the Information Aesthetics blog about two talks given by Eric Rodenbeck last year:
Eric Rodenbeck (Stamen): Information Visualization is a Medium
This post contains 2 recorded talks from Eric Rodenbeck, founder and creative director of Stamen Design, the visualization design lab known for projects like Trulia Hindsight, Digg Labs, SFMOMA ArtScope and Flickr Clock. – Information Aesthetics
The first talk argues that Information Visualization is more than a technology, it is becoming a medium with its own culture. As well as showing examples of visualisations made by Stamen, Eric uses a series of Venn diagrams to describe visualisation as working in the overlap between various elements, in particular between Analysis vs Spectacle.
“It is not enough to simply analyse and it is not enough to simply entertain, but as this thing moves out into the medium we can start to approach this way of looking at the world and thinking about the world that is beautiful as well as useful.” – Eric Rodenbeck.
Both talks are excellent!