Notational

On the question of “visualization” as a didactic strategy, lets take someone like Mark Lombardi’s work. It really isn’t that interesting to me as a didactic tool because it seems to remain on the level of “visualization” which, as I mentioned above, seems only helpful when it suggests new kinds of analysis or different ways of seeing.
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These visualizations can help you “see” what you’re looking at, but don’t really tell you anything more than the fact that there are relationships. They can get misleading very quickly if you put too much faith in them. They’re a departure point or a tool that can aid in analysis, but certainly do not “speak for themselves.”
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On the other hand, I think that Lombardi’s work succeeds as “art” precisely for the reasons that it fails as didactic work. I very much like the work when I view it in a more fantastical (as opposed to didactic) way.