Sculpting with Data: Final Assignment

What would constitute a set of dynamic data? Tidal changes, stock market changes, power usage, seismic data, crime statistics, crop reports, weather data, remote sensor data, astronomical changes, census data, tax reports, and real estate prices are a few examples. The important part is that you are dealing with information with at least two dimensions or characteristics. In many cases, the second characteristic is time. For example, if you were looking at the average temperature in a given location, you would most likely track its change over time. What we're interested in here are the patterns that emerge when we look at how the data change in relation to one another.

When you have a sense of the patterns of the data you're dealing with, the next step is to look for ways to express those patterns in a dynamic sculpture. Think not only about the patterns of data, but how the patterns change. Is the change slow and steady? Rapid and erratic? Incremental, but prone to sudden changes? "bouncy"? How would you describe it, and what structures or movements would reflect it best?

In designing your final sculpture, consider a few basic facts about sculptural forms. First, they have mass and shape; they aren't just two-dimensional, but can be viewed from every angle. Even if your sculpture isn't ideally viewed from every viewpoint, you should consider what it looks like from everywhere that the viewer can see it. When you design on screen or paper primarily, it is easy to forget that the viewed object has a back side. When you're designing a sculpture, you don't have the luxury of a limited viewing angle. It's possible that seeing your work from more than one angle actually gives the viewer more information than they get at first glance. Consider how you can use multiple viewpoints -- and the fact that the viewer has to move their body to see those viewpoints -- to your advantage.

"Information" and "data" are loaded terms; they tend to suggest calculation, measurement, and the lack of subjectivity associated with the scientific method. You do not have to limit yourself to this method. Poems, songs, and other forms of subjective expression also convey dynamic information. However, when you are dealing with expressive data, there can be problems with describing that information in such a way that you can use it in your project. How do you map a quality like love, anger, or fear, for example, to a change in an output device? There are ways of expressing these qualities in your sculpture; your challenge in these cases is to figure out how to do so in the least ambiguous way possible.

Before answering how you get the data, start by asking what data is meaningful to you, and by extension, can be made meaningful to your audience. The traffic across the NYU net may have less effect on you than the number of crimes reported in the city every week, for example, or the number of victims of natural disasters in a given week, or the number of emails to the White House in a given month. However, all are dynamic data, and all are quantifiable. Pick something that's of interest to you, and work on an appropriate way to embody that changing data.

While some data may reflect interesting changes in real time, other data may take longer to change, and therefore may need to be shown in time lapse. Consider the time scale of your subject when you begin to work, and the time which the typical viewer will give to a sculpture, and plan accordingly. If your work is one meant to be a part of an environment where viewers will see it again and again, then you have more time to work with. If your sculpture is one which viewers will typically see only once, the time scale for viewing is obviously shorter.

Although you may complete the entire project in the time alotted, it is more likely that this will be a prototype of a larger project. So your final presentation should include a full description of the whole sculpture, and a working prototype of the part most valuable to demonstrate using physical computing methods.

See these additional tips on data sculpting if you need more guidance.

Design limitations:

• No video/data monitors, no projectors.
• Project should incorporate a networked exchange of data, either over the internet or another network of your own creation.
• All technology must exist and be feasible for this project

What you should turn in:

You will be presenting the pieces of this assignment in stages. Each week a different group or groups will present a different piece, so that we see the progress of the whole project. The documentation pieces will be posted to your website for the class. See the syllabus for deadlines on when you should post your documentation

An abstract

Describe the sculpture and why you chose the subject you chose (a few paragraphs to one page at most)

An experience description

What the user sees, hears, etc. in chronological or spatial order.This should be a sensory description, not technological. Include drawings, interactive diagrams, models, etc. to best illustrate it.

A brief technical description

This should detail the components not included in the prototype. This does not have to have specific part numbers, etc., but should identify the parts, and show that the parts you're not building are at least feasible.

A thematic diagram

A block drawing of the components involved and how they connect to each other. Pay attention to the communications protocols connecting them. Every component used has to be connected to the system in a logical way.

A working prototype

This model is to demonstrate the action or interaction of the sculpture. If your ideal sculpture is very large, consider making a working scale model of it. In this case, it's better to give a small impression of the whole that works than building a full scale part that doesn't work for lack of time, parts, etc. You should focus on making your model demonstrate what the viewer would experience when viewing the sculpture itself, and use the other documentation to support that.

Keep in mind, you do not have to build the entire working system for this project. You should build those parts that are best demonstrated using an interactive demonstration.

Questions and problems

In the course of researching and designing this, you will develop a lot of questions about how things work.

• What works for the kinds of systems we're talking about? What doesn't?
• What technologies did you encounter that you see potential in, and want to know more about?
• What technologies do you already know about, and see potential for more development?

Remember: the sculpture should be a satisfying experience in and of itself. The information it's reflecting may be the most fascinating material in the world, but if the viewer doesn't know that and you give them a sculpture that doesn't work as sensory experience, no one will get the point.

The pinwheels and other work of the Tangible Media group are available here.

See also and Michael Mateas and Marc Bohlen's Office Plant #1