Computer Arts

spring 2017 giOrgiA LUpi

moments relationships with close

friends and time spent alone.

We not only quantified these

moments but added anecdotal

details. Doing this brings you closer

to their real meaning and you start

to make correlations and understand

things on a multifaceted level.

I believe that addressing your

darkest sides and obsessions in

form of numbers then counting

and reporting them helped me not

be afraid of them anymore. In a

way they become data! The sort of

objectiveness that counting implies

helped me to overcome the fear of

addressing those tricky topics.

Even topics that could seemingly

be more superficial were interesting.

In the first week we tracked how

many times we checked the time. By

adding context to each log I revealed

my endless anxiety about being late

even though I’m always on time!

Your collaboration with guitarist

Kaki King captured all her hand

movements when she plays. In your

Design Indaba talk she mentioned

that this made her hyper-aware of

her actions. Surely this can affect

the nature of the behaviour itself?

I believe that manual data collection

is inevitably more meaningful than

the use of ‘frictionless’ apps that

gather data without you lifting a

finger. While self-tracking apps are

useful – who wants to count all the

steps they take in a day by hand? –

there is incredible value in engaging

in this effort even for a short time.

Hand-counting your data and

analysing it manually helps you

get to know it – and yourself – at a

deeper level. Noticing and counting

actions becomes a ritual that makes

you more aware of your behaviour

and your surroundings.

The best art and design projects

I’ve seen have a particular level of

personal hard work painful work

that is visible in the process and this

generally means they invested a lot

of themselves into these projects.

Do projects like these represent a

new form of creative expression?

To be a data visualisation designer

you have to find new languages. You

also have to make visuals that can

become magnetic to people that are

not familiar with data practices.

I believe that loading any kind of

analytical representations with

and universal truth and embrace
imperfection and approximation; to
use data to feel more empathetic to
connect with ourselves and others
at a deeper level. The more effort we
put into researching and translating
the easier the reader will understand
and relate to the stories we tell.
This requires a paradigm shift in
the way we represent information
visually. We should learn how to
render more qualitative nuanced
aspects as well as how to visualise
uncertainty and imperfections.
As we showed with Dear Data
when it comes to personal data even
small quantities of it – or the lack of
it – tell us a lot about ourselves. They
celebrate the incomplete imperfect
yet precious human details of life.

For Dear Data you exhaustively
recorded and analysed a huge range
of daily activities. Which were the
most interesting and revealing?
Many of the weeks’ topics provided
unexpected insights especially
the ones where we were forced to
focus on our inner selves. Topics
included for example negative
thoughts indecisions feelings of
envy or gratitude our most private

above: premiered

at Design indaba

2017 a Dialogue

between Four

Hands is a

collaboration

between Giorgia

lupi and musician

Kaki King that

visualises every

movement touch

and gesture that

King does with

her hands as she

plays her guitar.

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