Data Sculptures

opening new doors to data literacy through creative arts

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Rahul Bhargava

Journalism, Art + Design, Northeastern University

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Camillia Matuk

Educational Communication & Technology, New York University

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The Plan

Why build data sculptures?

How do we make them?

Motivations & evidence base

How could we use them?

Q&A & discussion

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Why Data Sculptures?

reimagining data storytelling as designing physical objects

Examples

From history, the world around us, and youth

nathaliemiebach.com/weatherscores.html

This data drawing shows where the word “coronavirus” is heard the most. I used different colors to represent the different places where the word would be heard. (Middle schools student)

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“This was a fun project. I learned a lot while doing it. As the days went on the more I thought about touching my face the less I did. Thinking about something can really affect someone behavior.” (Middle school student)

Representation synergies: Embodiment

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DesPortes, K., Vacca, R., Tes, M., Woods, P., Matuk, C., Amato, A. & Silander, M. (2022). Dancing with data: Embodying the numerical and humanistic sides of data. In, Proceedings of the International Conference for the Learning Sciences, The International Society for the Learning Sciences.

Claim/Support: One of the first things we noticed on this graph was that exploitation is one of the biggest causes of all of this. Exploitation is in this case when humans take advantage of animals and almost use them, giving nothing in return...

Movements: In our dance we do a trust fall [deliberately falling and trusting someone to catch them] with a very narrow and low drop. This is showing how humans are taking animals for granted.

Students used movement to:

• Describe the shape and values of data
• Describe the context of data
• Represent the consequences of data

Physical encodings

Changing physical attributes of the object based on data

Bertin’s work still drives most visualization today

How do we make data sculptures?

Types of Representations

Symbolic

Represent the data via some kind of abstraction

e.g. If you used a line chart or bar chart

Iconic

Use something related to the dataset to represent it

e.g. If you used a cone or spoon

Indexical

Directly represent the data with what it is about

e.g. If you used real ice cream here

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Share out

1. What data story does your artwork tell?
2. What do you want your audience to think or feel when they look at your artwork?
3. What artistic choices did you make to evoke those thoughts/feelings?
4. In what data practices did you find yourself engaging, to make your artwork?
5. What learning value is added/lost compared to typical approaches (e.g., describing in words or using traditional data representations)?

Motivations & evidence

Challenge: “I don’t math”

• Learners associate data with math
• Math is perceived as a binary ability
• Self-perception underestimates math ability

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Matuk, C., Vacca, R., Amato, A., Silander, M., DesPortes, K., Woods, P. J., & Tes, M. (2023). Promoting students’ informal inferential reasoning through arts-integrated data literacy education. Information and Learning Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-07-2023-0088

Leonard, A. E., Bannister, N. A., & D’Souza, N. F. (2020). '(Non)dance and (non)math people’: Challenging binary disciplinary identities in education. Research in Dance Education, 0(0), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2020.1853692

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meet learners where they are, in a form they feel confident with.

Opportunity: Constructionism

• Papert built on Piaget’s constructivism
• Learning through the shared creation of a physical object of interest
• The object mediates teamwork
• The object concretizes understanding for reflection (and evaluation)

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Leonard, A. E., Bannister, N. A., & D’Souza, N. F. (2020). '(Non)dance and (non)math people’: Challenging binary disciplinary identities in education. Research in Dance Education, 0(0), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2020.1853692

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shared creation of the object unlocks new dialogue and reflection

Opportunity: Epistemological Pluralism

• Most data science is spreadsheet/math based
• We need to open many doors for many learners
• This is fun

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D’Ignazio, C., & Klein, L. F. (2020). Data Feminism. The MIT Press.

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Turkle, S., & Papert, S. (1990). Epistemological Pluralism: Styles and Voices within the Computer Culture. Signs, 16(1), 128–157.

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addresses urgent to serve many types of learners

Alignments in inquiry practices (Matuk et al., 2024; adapted from Bevan et al., 2019)

Matuk, C., Vacca, R., Amato, A., Silander, M., DesPortes, K., Woods, P. J., & Tes, M. (2024). Promoting students’ informal inferential reasoning through arts-integrated data literacy education. Information and Learning Sciences, 125(3/4), 163-189.

Synergies + tensions at the intersection of DS and arts

Matuk, C., Vacca, R., Amato, A., Silander, M., DesPortes, K., Woods, P. J., & Tes, M. (2024). Promoting students’ informal inferential reasoning through arts-integrated data literacy education. Information and Learning Sciences, 125(3/4), 163-189.

Informal inferential reasoning (Ben-Zvi et al., 2015, Makar & Rubin, 2018)

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• Making evidence-based claims and predictions
• Making sense of data and data patterns in terms of their real-world context and implications
• Raising questions about data-based claims and their (un)certainty

Recommendations for classroom settings

The data artist’s statement

1. What data story does your artwork tell?
2. What do you want your audience to think or feel when they look at your artwork?
3. What artistic choices did you make to evoke those thoughts/feelings?
4. In what data practices did you find yourself engaging, to make your artwork?

• Establish clear criteria for what counts as evidence wrt the values of each domain.
• Encourage aesthetic decisions that elevate emotion in communicating about data.
• Remind learners to consider audience responses Use peer critique!
• Have students produce artist statements to describe their process.

Matuk, C., Vacca, R., Amato, A., Silander, M., DesPortes, K., Woods, P. J., & Tes, M. (2024). Promoting students’ informal inferential reasoning through arts-integrated data literacy education. Information and Learning Sciences, 125(3/4), 163-189.

How could we use data sculptures?

Reflect in Small Groups

Say hello 👋🏽👋🏻👋🏿👋🏼👋

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Discuss:

• What’s the opportunity for using data sculptures in your learning setting? What value could it add?
• What next steps could you take to try this out? What challenges might you face? How might you overcome them?

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Identify 1 or 2 points to share back, and someone to do that.

Wrap Up

Resources & Inspirations