Creative Data Visualisation: Representing Data in Visual and Material Form

Digital data is ubiquitous in contemporary culture: it documents environment, health, communication, government, arts, professional and private realms. For designers and practitioners data offers a profound opportunity to investigate, reveal and creatively represent this increasingly significant layer of our society. This practical course grounds students in data as a key element in contemporary design practice, and in the design and production of data visualisations. Through a series of hands-on exercises students will develop static, dynamic and interactive representations of data for screen-based and tangible forms, and come to understand the functional and poetic dimensions of visualisation as a creative practice. The course introduces students to the cultures and contexts of data visualisation and design, and the analysis and interpretation of visualisations. It also introduces critical perspectives on the questions of representation and interpretation that are central to the field. This course will be of interest to students from a wide range of fields including design, fine arts, digital humanities and information technology, where the visual representation of data offers both immediate challenges and creative opportunities.