What is Data Art?

Data art is a visceralization1 of data that takes a step beyond data visualization. This means that the whole body can experience the data. You can see it, feel it, touch it, hear it, taste it. Instead of a bar graph or pie chart, we display data through drawing, dance, digital art, and even coding in R.

Our Process

A sketch drawn with colored pencils assigning numbers to colors and then coloring pi and the first 100 prime numbers in those colors

A sketch drawn with colored pencils of 10 bars where bar length and color represent different risks such as searched at a traffic stop and incarcerated as an adult

A sketch drawn with colored pencils exploring how different colors and patterns can be used to represent ratios

Alexander Brandfonbrener ’23: Above are three of my notebook tests. I had a few goals for my data art process. For the first few weeks, I tried to make generic representations of data with a focus on the data type. For example, I did tests with digital values as colors, and ratios as fluid gradients. Then for the rest of the project, I tailored my work to creating a narrative using imagery connected to OB/GYN topics. This included cervixes and other reproductive organs, and an extended metaphor that tied groundwater to racial inequities, as per the Racial Equity Institute’s publication. I settled on hearts as the medium for my main data art piece.

Gillian Richard ’24: I began by practicing how to represent numbers through movement including the use of levels, body parts, intensity, location, style, repetition, and direction. I then moved into using some example articles to practice representing actual data and created four practice videos, each with a different way of embodying the data. I created a list of steps for my process that is as follows:

Method:

  1. Read through article

  2. Record data

  3. Calculate differences

  4. Meditate on connection between subject + medium

  5. Assign data to body parts/duration/etc

  6. Improv for each statistic

  7. Choreograph and record

Since I am using my own body as the vessel to present the data, I found it important to focus on the prevalence of whiteness and white supremacy due to my positionality as a white woman. Therefore, for my final piece, I represented the percentage of articles that used white as a reference group.

Footnotes

  1. The term data visceralization is discussed in Data Feminism↩︎