{"id":23459,"date":"2025-04-30T10:39:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dvsnightingstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=23459"},"modified":"2025-04-30T10:41:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T14:41:39","slug":"senses-and-sentiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nightingaledvs.com\/senses-and-sentiment\/","title":{"rendered":"Senses & Sentiment: When data is too emotional for the screen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After doing data visualization work for eleven years, in 2021 I decided to go back to school to gain the skills and tools for creating physical work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d already been fascinated with\u2014and then obsessed with\u2014data physicalizations and installations for almost a decade. My interest in them grew over time as I became dissatisfied with creating work for the screen; I was frustrated that no matter how much love I put into a work, I was ultimately vying for a few minutes of attention amongst dozens of other tabs. I wanted to create a whole world, but designing for a screen meant I could only share that world via tiny windows. I wanted people to step into my works with their full bodies, where I could monopolize all of their attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At New York University\u2019s Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), I learned how to control Arduinos (a.k.a. microcontrollers, tiny computers capable of simple operations for devices that interact with the real world), LEDs, motors, extract sensor readings, and design circuits. I laser cut and 3D printed, I proudly overcame my fear of band saws and miter saws (a.k.a. big motorized blades), and I became comfortable in hardware stores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what I hadn\u2019t expected was the luxury that two years away from client work afforded me, and grad school became a safe space for me to experiment. I went in with a singular goal: I wanted to see what my data stories could look like off the screen and into the physical world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I found, instead, was myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u25c7\u25c6\u25c7<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a funny thing: When we create for the screen, we can go so fast. For years, I\u2019d churn out projects in a matter of weeks, at most a few months. There\u2019s a sort of satisfaction to that, being able to write a few lines of code, hit refresh, and see something appear on the screen. But it also means that I have no time to think about the why. I mean, I know why I\u2019m designing a visualization a certain way, how the design choices support the data, the story I\u2019m trying to tell. But I never have the time to question: Why am I doing this? What does this dataset, this story, mean to me? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the unexpected things for me working on these physical pieces was the amount of time between ideation and realization, and how that wait time demanded introspection. I could no longer hit refresh and get a result in a few seconds. I had to get on 40-minute train rides for fabric samples, wait half a day for a 3D print to finish, or a week for electronic components to arrive. That wait time forced me to be intentional with every material choice and design decision, until I pared down the piece to its core. It also gave me a lot of time to get existential and think about why I was doing what I was doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was especially true when I created my thesis project that took four months working on and off, in between classes and exhibitions, to complete. The piece, \u201cUntitled (we still land, home)\u201d (2023) is introspective and deeply emotional for me. The final exhibit is a physical data installation featuring Chinese calligraphy ink that drips onto billowing fabric at different rates based on a dataset of Chinese immigration into America. The dataset itself is simple and small, only 17 rows and two columns, but the stories behind each number\u2014including my own, as an immigrant\u2014are anything but. <\/p>\n\n\n\n