DATA PORTRAITS (SPARKLINES)
Year: 2025
Made with: Graphite, archival quality inks, and paper.
Featured in: Sparklines
Description: In the late 1800's, sociologist W.E.B. Dubois and a team at Harvard University
created a portfolio of
60 hand drafted data visualizations.
or, data portraits, to express African American life
in America to an international audience at the 1900 Paris World Fair. The team's approach to the data visualizations
focused on clarity of the data, but also experimental and artistic visual techniques to capture
attention and elevate clear data to something that was also abstract and expressive.
I created the data portraits you see here for an exhibition called
Sparklines where hand-drafted data visualizations
accompany a coffee maker computer.
I was inspired by W.E.B. Dubois' data portraits but mine focus on a different population that I call Artist/Hackers -
a subversive group with the power to make significant changes to systems depending on their own morality.
Artist/hackers are often anonymous.
Data portraits create a portrait to understand something
about the character, motivations, and even taste of artist/hackers.
