Seeing like a Rover: Visualization, embodiment, and interaction on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Abstract

Based on more than 2 years of ethnographic immersion with the Mars Exploration Rover mission, this paper examines the representational work and associated embodied practices through which the science and engineering team makes decisions about how and where to move their robots. Building on prior work in Science and Technology Studies on the importance of embodiment to visualization, the paper posits that such practices also contribute to the production and maintenance of social order within the organizational context of the laboratory. It thus places visualization technologies and techniques in the context of the social organization of scientific work, contributing to our understanding of representation in scientific practice.