The Culture and Politics of Data Visualisation

Between Craft and Code – Exploring Affective Data Expression through Data Materialisation This series of works seeks to explore the human experience in a world of data. Building on the field of data visualisation and embodiment, we are moving into multisensory and physical ways of making sense of digital information. The data visualisations feature sample data from an industrial context, in this case sensor data reporting on the performance of engine parts on marine vessels. The design concept aims to utilize the intuitive perception of errors. Drawing on theoretical ideas of Gestalt theory, embodied metaphors and image schemata, this process harvests pre-linguistic user understanding – with the purpose of increasing the accessibility of the data. The abstract sensor data was translated back into a form related to the original analogue motion – which seeks to compensate for the ways that ship engineers used to apply their intuitive, sensory and tacit knowledge to diagnose ship engines. For the purposes of the exhibition "Between Craft and Code" in Portsmouth (UK, 2015), the data was represented in 3 different sensory modes, to explore patterns and connections across the various modalities in producing and consuming these works.