Exploring Data Humanism

INTRODUCTION

Giorgia Lupi (http://giorgialupi.com/) is one of the creative minds that are vocal about the need for a ‘Data Humanism’. She is mainly talking about achieving a visual representation of data that can be more insightful than a cold infographic. But why is the traditional approach more popular? Lupi says that: “What made cheap marketing infographics so popular is probably their biggest contradiction: the false claim that a couple of pictograms and a few big numbers have the innate power to simplify complexity. (…) we need to begin designing ways to connect numbers to what they really stand for: knowledge, behaviours, people.” 

Lupi recently worked on “10 paintings for 10 days in isolation”, in which she painted and stitched one composition every day, reflecting and using blocks, shapes, sizes, colours, wrinkled canvases and thread patterns to represent her physical and mental state for the day. Frustration level, physical symptoms, activities done during the day, number of (virtual) connections with friends and family, if she took a home test or not and the result. You don’t need to have coding skills to make art with data. 

Ekene Ijeoma (https://studioijeoma.com/), founder and director of the Poetic Justice at MIT Media Lab, creates multisensory representations of data studies, turning them into what he describes as digestible art. As an example, ‘Wage Islands #2’ is an interactive installation that submerges a topographic map of NYC underwater to visualize where low-wage workers can afford to rent. 

Another brilliant example of data-driven art - Pan-African AIDS - is a series of sculptures that explore the hypervisibility of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa and the hidden one in Black America. Other examples of creatives making insightful art with data are Hito Steyerl, Cao Yuxi, Ryoji Ikeda, Refik Anadol, and many, many more. Philosopher Theodor Adorno once stated that technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them people. 

How can we combine data with humanity, numbers and infographics with poetry? Can you make art with data? Data may be one of the most overused words of this century. We need to find ways of consuming information that is not only scientific, but human too.

In this project you will be working with journalist Cecilia Mezzi, and some of her other colleagues from the creative industries. Your task will be to find data concerning a current issue or concern that is meaningful to you and your group, create a story to describe it, and means to convey it to an audience. Your chosen data could be taken from any current field where the creatives and the creative industries intersect with cultural, economic, social or technological change. Something exciting and important that your team wants to explore and share. (Managing this decision process will be in itself is a key part of fulfilling the brief). 

Data and scientific evidence help you understand an issue. Emotions and storytelling help you remember it – and share it. A key outcome will be to challenge the way that data is traditionally portrayed.

MY FINAL WORK

We have helped people who cannot express their emotions to create a website that presents the concept of emotion visualization.

Here is the link to the website：

https://sites.google.com/view/teambmoodbox/homepage

We believe that art is the best outlet, and since we all have our own outlets for our emotions, so we have chosen the film "LaLa Land" as an example, we have each chosen a method of our own and created a methodology to teach people who cannot express their emotions how to "visualize" our emotions.

As I have a foundation in costume design, I chose to turn it into a methodology to teach others how to express their emotions with models, colors, silhouettes, and fabrics.

Final Visualization Data Image

Character Pattern Selection

Our mood box website will provide character patterns of various styles, heights, weights, skin colors, and genders for audiences to match the emotional expressions of different styles of films, books, and music.

Color Selection

Our mood box website will provide a variety of different colors with this option. The audience can choose three to five colors that best suit the mood of the moment after watching the film, book, or music.

After selecting the color, our website can also provide an automatic color scheme to help the audience without an art and design foundation to match the color and you can also decide to color the mood board yourself.

Silhouette Selection

As for me, the emotional factor that clothing brings to people's vision first comes from the color, and then the silhouette will be noticed. I think the silhouette is one of the key points for clothing to express emotions. For example, when I wear a suit with shoulder pads I will lift my spirits, and when I wear a loose hoodie I will relax, there is a difference in my temperament and behavior. On our mood box website, there will be a variety of clothing silhouettes and styles for the audience to choose from.

Fabric Selection

The last to be noticed, but also the most indispensable way of expressing emotions in clothing are the fabric because the fabric provides the most direct tactile experience, for example, plush fabrics are tactile and visually reminiscent of warmth, grandeur, and snow in winter; cotton fabrics feel reassured and comfortable, while leather fabrics feel distanced and cold.