Spurred by Olympics and elections in 2012, the world of data and its visual manifestations celebrated exciting developments in new programming languages, journalistic insight, and design fluency that tended to be the rule rather than exception for once. However, the fervor over this growing domain comes with its fair share of disillusionment, and the calls for slow data, skepticism, and more intimate messages are growing into an audible din. As these things tend to go when preceded by a flood of hype, much of the nuance and interesting details surface after the dust settles.
One facet of this, the role of art in data visualization, has been subject to ongoing debate as the community has expanded and diversified. Among some high-visibility practitioners, there seems to be a tendency to put art and science on separate and opposing ends of the spectrum. In the most extreme cases, use of a personal aesthetic becomes associated with frivolous decoration and the pursuit of novelty for noveltyâs sake. At the same time, efforts from designers working independently from data scientists and the original data sources can indeed produce the superficial results that critics point to in problematizing the use of style. But for the sake of progress, we may as well avoid the lowest common denominators.
 There are, of course, important technical considerations for exploratory visualizations contained within a field; and sometimes all it takes is a bar chart or scatter plot. But as the overall body of knowledge continues to grow, so does the dire need to capture the attention of others and accurately share insights to unfamiliar audiences. Itâs worth keeping in mind that these pieces are ultimately communications to other humansâand not just an amorphous âpublic,â but individual interpreters having discrete experiences. If we take a step back, reexamine our intentions, and unpack some of these generalizations, we may be better able to understand the mechanisms by which art and science conspire to distill and communicate meaningful information.
âThe biggest failure of data art, in my opinion, is in neglecting to address the individual character of a data set. We have all kinds of quite beautiful methods to visualize datasets of a specific sort â say network data sets â but they tend to be general use algorithms and techniques. As a result, visualizations of varied data sets tend to look the same.â
With powerful tools at hand to work with, itâs easy to see why many default to templated, established, formal solutions. Itâs hard to disagree that visualizations should communicate clearly and refrain from too much novelty, but should we settle for visual sameness and stagnation? This isnât to say that the answer is in arbitrarily applying veneers of style (hand-drawn sketchiness, nostalgic print treatments, etc). In any creative endeavor, itâs more important to focus on the process than the final âlookâ of a piece. No instagram filter could ever replace the thoughtful consideration of color and composition, of semiotics and visual perception that actually tighten a message and make it more deliberate and impactful.Â
Of course, itâs easier to talk about these things in broad terms and metaphors than to understand and employ the right creative strategies. The following is merely a quick survey of designers and artists working around the periphery of data representation, hopefully in ways that can be inspiring and instructive across a broader range of practice.
When the topic of the human touch in information design come up, itâs impossible to overlook the data-crafted approach of Stephanie Posavec. Her work is often cited for the beauty of the final diagramsâuniquely organized through her own visual intuitionâbut itâs worth calling attention to the labor of love that is her data gathering process. As described in a short documentary by Protein, she explains: âby reading and rereading these texts, Iâm able to understand more about a specific text or a specific subject matter than I would otherwise, than I would if I wrote a computer program to analyze that text for me.â Posavec chose to work with On The Road because of the novelâs personal significance, and in encoding the text by hand in her Writing Without Words series, sheâs able to interpret the shades of meaning to be gained from great literature specifically by humans, just beyond any current algorithmâs reach.
Becoming more deeply involved in data collection and analysis may be one path towards crafting visualizations that resonate on a more poignant, intimate frequency. Also, in order to reach others at a personal scale, why not begin with personal interests and causes?
This is how Ai Weiwei began his investigation into the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Following the devastating natural disaster and subsequent Chinese government cover-up, the artist took it upon himself to bring in a team to find the names and birthdates of child casualties that resulted from shoddy public school construction. Though the final visual outcome wasnât a direct numerical representation of the original data, even the simple act of publishing those names to his blog formalized the message in a powerful way that rallied supporters and attracted harassment from local authorities. For a 2010 retrospective at Haus der Kunst in Munich, he used 9000 colored backpacks to write out a phrase from a mother of one of the victimsââshe lived happily for seven years in this world.â In the documentary Never Sorry, he explains how the idea to use the backpacks came from being on the ground. Seeing those objects strewn about the rubble as the physical reminders of lost lives, and ultimately incorporated them into a message that is at once intimate and forceful.
Cultivating projects for a human scale doesnât have to do with the size of the original datasets, but the point along the design process where you shift between the birds-eye-view and taking a reader through the experience on the ground. The map is not the territory, but thereâs value to both take and give from getting closer to a first-person perspective.
Without venturing into the modern data visualization canon, Iâll end with an example from Berlin-based design firm ART+COM, which employs media specificity as a fully formed design philosophy and methodology. By embracing the fact that the tools, platforms, interfaces, and context all become part of the DNA of the message, theyâre able to execute an impressive array of works that fit a unique niche for both their clients and audiences.
Mobility was a project built specifically to stand out in the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and speak to the concerns for handicapped people. Commissioned by Otto Bock HealthCare, they took the opportunity to utilize their clientâs prosthetics in the installation, which combined neatly with an ancient form of information exchangeâreflecting light in mirrors. Each hand was fitted with a mirror, then painstakingly positioned and choreographed to realign into the Chinese character for movement.
 A screen or wall of LEDâs would also have done the job, but given the bright, chaotic surroundings at the 2010 and earlier World Expositions, their decidedly lo-fi route provided a moment of respite in an experience otherwise pervaded by grandiose architecture and a bombardment of flashing, colored lights. As with the previous examples, the combination of human intuition and sheer effort that went into researching and crafting these simple messages comes through.
 Abstract shapes on screens are capable of doing a great number of things, and in many environments, but ubiquity has never been the goal. Just as the richness in biological life comes from highly specialized adaptationsâpushed into unimaginably unique arrangements through competition or predation or symbiosisâso could the digital environment nurture more diverse ways of distilling and communicating information. Not just for noveltyâs sake, but also for the robust dialogue that would follow, and the chance for ever better ways to comprehend this growing wealth of information. Because what if the fertile ground lies not in the sheer volume and spectacle of data, but in the details of human experience? By bringing the rapid changes weâre experiencing down to scale, we may find compelling moments that actually help put some order to the seeming chaos of modernity.