Making creativity tangible with data physicalization
By: A. Hexelschneider
Tags: Data Visualization, Data Physicalization, Dataviz, Datenvisualisierung, Visualization

Part of my data physicalization installation

My firm belief is: Knowledge is useless without creative processing.

In order to prepare knowledge for communication/knowledge transfer you need to be creative. If you are a knowledge worker it is especially helpful to be creative with your hands. It is relaxing and builds up embodied knowledge. That’s what this article is about.

Furthermore, I want to show how statistics about creativity can be made tangible with data physicalization.

German version -> https://wissendenken.com/visuelle-kommunikation/daten/data-physicalization/

Making Creativity Tangible

This was my goal for my contribution to an art exhibition. Four female artists from Styria in Austria planned an exhibition and invited me to take part. Previously I had some photo exhibitions or took part with photos in collective exhibitions. But now I wanted to challenge myself with another visualization format. And I wanted to challenge the visitors too :-)

Styria, women and creativity requires creativity. This led to my idea to visualize the creativity of women in Styria with data art.

Mankind physicalizes data throughout the history and uses these data-objects too. But the more alternatives we developed, the less clay tokens and the abacus were being used. And we did no longer physicalize data. But some years ago, there was a renaissance of data physicalization due to the fact that it generates interest.

You can easily skip reading numbers on paper, but you rather not overlook interesting data-objects.

The Journey is the Reward

The journey from my initial idea towards the exhibition was quite long. As this was side project in my time off, I was grateful that the exhibition was being planned months ahead. I work a lot and don’t have so much free time. Creativity needs incubation. So I was able to incubate a lot :-)

Finally, at the end of May our exhibition took place:

My collage for our exhibition

As it is the case with (all?) visualization formats the journey was a reward too, in fact there were many rewards:

=> I challenged myself and not only my students. And I learned something for me and for my students.

=> I produced somethings with my hands. Even so I am originally a bookbinder by profession, I no longer practice this. And my daughter is an adult, so we stopped playing years ago. I wanted to use my knowledge worker body not only to transfer my brain from A to B.

=> I could trust my know-how regarding work with knowledge which I transfer to my students and clients.

Statistics, Please

First, I had to collect data. I wanted to get hold of female creativity in Styria via asking creative associations and organizations for numbers of their female members. I did not always receive an answer. But many people helped me or pointed out other sources.

In doing so the resulting installation can only show an accidental picture of female creativity in Styria. It is just an opening into that topic. But I suppose this constraint can be useful. It encourages to think about who and what is missing.

I visualized numbers of

the Austrian Union of Visual Artists in Styria (Bundesverband der Bildenden KünstlerInnen Österreichs, Landesverband Steiermark),

the University of Applied Sciences Johanneum GmbH (FH JOANNEUM Gesellschaft mbH),

the Künstlerbund Graz,

nextliberty,

the Oper Graz,

the Schauspielhauses Graz,

the Sezession Graz,

the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz),

the Association of Visual Artists in Styria, (Vereinigung Bildender Künstler der Steiermark)

the Werkbund.

Just before the exhibition a questionable Bachelor Thesis of the University of Applied Sciences Johanneum GmbH made news. As I know the progressive side of the University and value it very much and as no design courses, I was going to visualized, were being involved, I decided to keep their numbers. Moreover, the University deals with the situation very openly.

With a heavy heart I had to leave out the many female pop singers and pop musicians of Styria. Their numbers were beyond my means for physicalization.

Now let’s look at the challenge to find data-objects to show the numbers.

Objects, Please

I have the feeling that at the moment there is a lot of knitting and 3d-printing in data physicalization. I had the intention to find a form not so much in use today. Another prerequisite was, that I should be able to take everything from Vienna to Graz by train and set it up in the exhibition space in some hours. This meant to forgo some ideas. But only for that exhibition. I have now data-object ideas that I could use for a variety of statistics. And my next side project is in its planning phase. Watch this space!

After a long process of using the analogy technique to find ideas, after testing and rejecting ideas, there was the result: flowers.

“And while she was talking, she breezed spring roses…” says Ovid about the goddess Flora Mater. I used my flowers as an example for the creative (F)flora of Styria.

Let 673 Flowers Grow

First, there were the flower prototypes. And then the “real” flowers made of wooden sticks for plant growing (stem) and paper of the Büttenpapierfabrik Gmund GmbH & Co. KG (blossom). No, this is no advertisement. I paid for all the material I used. But as an engineer for printing technology I love good paper, that is why I used Gmund Paper.

To get off your desk onto the balcony in order to colour another batch of wooden sticks green, refreshes the mind.

Cutting out blossoms on the train to teaching at the University of Applied Sciences in Burgenland can lead to appraisal of young fellow travellers.

And it was so good to get out of my head and use my hands for other tasks than typing.

I had this central explanation next to the flowers and one next to each new flower colour in the installation

From top to the bottom:

singer, ensemble, guests, choir, opera studio, young artists, including students (smaller flowers); musicians, conductors, composers, including students (smaller flowers); dancers; actors, including students (smaller flowers); communication, media, sound, interaction design, information design, industrial design, stage design, including students (smaller flowers); visual artist including students (smaller flowers).

The “flower meadow” in form of the federal state of Styria was ready in the official CI green of the state, including the board below. But out of the blue my head said: ”Stop it!” Late at night, with 3 days to go till the exhibition!

We know from research that our brain continues thinking about something even if we are not aware of it. My inner warning told me that the idea of Styria in proportion to the number of planned flowers was not correct. One thought behind it: the flowers would have covered the whole area leaving no space for men in Styria. But there are men in Styria…

And to make matters worse, the next morning, I realized that the idea of Styria as “meadow” was too obvious, too boring.

The way out was a train ride I had to make. So I was able to let my brain get into those productive semi-conscious alpha waves. Looking out of the window at the countryside I remembered an artist, who use real flowers for free art installations. And I remembered a photo of a very, very long flowerbed she did — flower behind flower.

That’s when the idea hit me: “Take the letters S T E I E R M A R K (=Styria) and use them each as single flowerbeds. And in the evening after teaching I found myself running to the local hardware store — just before a public holiday — in order to buy small boards.

Testing the flowerbed idea, two days before the vernissage.

Flowerbeds in the making in the gallery space

They would have been nice too as single letters = flowerbeds spread in the room, but as the space was limited, I did it this way (photo of me and of my flowerbeds by Andrea Pierus)

Each woman of my statistics was one flower. Students were smaller flowers. You could possibly question this.

And questions were being asked at the vernissage. It was an unusual view at an art exhibition. I hope I praised female creativity in Styria and showed the value of numbers in a new way to many visitors.

Why Is Data Physicalization Of Use?

Working through this creative process with my head and my hands was a wholesome challenge. It showed me which creative limits I can move away and which not yet.

I am of the opinion that this visualization format can be worth a try in a firm or organization too in order to make statistics

· visible in a way that no one can overlook them,

· visible in a surprising way,

· memorable.

Gratitude

Many people helped me to get statistics, of course anonymous statistics. I am grateful for the donated statistics and for links to other potential sources.

I am grateful that I got invited and the other artists trusted me and my idea. I am grateful that my partner has so much patience when I discussed new ideas with him. And I would like to thank Susanne Strampfer-Rigerl for her introduction at the vernissage.

Did you like my little project? Then watch this space for my next data physicalization project.