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# System prepended metadata

title: MiniX 001

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# MiniX 001

How are you interacting with data?
Reflect on what is new to you (or something you haven’t thought of)?

I’m aware that I’m surrounded by data. All the time. Whether I’m on my phone or on my laptop, whether I’m on the museum are using the new health app provided by the government to keep track of the current Covid situation. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as data is an important part of understanding not only habits of the individual person but perhaps more importantly habits, movements, and whereabouts - both physical and online - of entire populations.
Whether the data is gathered and used for tracking, that benefits the individuals own interests, or whether individuals are only being monitored for companies’ monetary gain – interaction with data is not something you can decide not to partake in.
I know data is already deeply embedded in most societies all over the world. We are, as individuals in modern societies, surrounded by technological things which operates on data. As I see it data becomes an invisible web of seemingly harmless apps and interfaces, with an incredible impact on societies and individual’s daily life. These infrastructures have shown themselves to me in the form of the web browsers, and most of the apps that I use daily on my smartphone and laptop.
When I’m most aware about interacting with data (and providing it), is when I’m asked to accept cookies and other guidelines for using webpages and apps. I must accept the conditions, that I’m presented with, knowing that they will track my online whereabouts, and store some personal information. Knowing this, I know that whatever page I might be on, will have access to some part of my, already established and possibly huge, online data profile.
In the beginning, when I was new to using the Internet - browsing and surfing around at random, I had no problem with disclosing personal information or accepting whatever cookies were thrown at me. This, mainly because I knew that I had nothing to hide and therefore nothing to protect.
There are many reasons why my perception of data and infrastructures online have changed. During my studies at university, I’ve come to know a lot of things that I never knew existed or were possible at all. It’s not only about wanting to protect something personal, knowing you have nothing to hide, it’s more about not falling into the web of algorithms run by the data that I willingly surrender. This because, most of the algorithms that are targeted to me not always have my best interest in mind but are there solely to control and shape my online habits
I don’t think the algorithms, running on data that is constantly being gathered by technological devices every day, every hour, every minute, every second – everywhere in the world, can fully be understood or analyzed (as it is ever changing). I have found it almost impossible to understand what lies behind the interfaces that I frequently visit and therefore I think that most people in this age of technology must be facing the same problem.

Why do we need to understand data?

Infrastructures are relational and they are complicating what it means to be human. We are producing new data about ourselves every time we use technology. Tracking is increasingly becoming a bigger part of the modern world where people give me five aspects of life in good and bad ways.
The tracking can help us adjust so that our time will be well spent but it can also be used against us to control us.

We have not learnt to use computers, but computers have learnt to use us. We don’t understand the workings of the invisible hardware, we don’t understand most of the software behind platforms or apps that we are using every day - and therefore we relinquish a certain power to the unknown (data).
Even if raw data was available to everyone a very small amount of people would understand how to interpret it and use it.
I’m not sure how social and cultural dimensions are preserved in data as the world is becoming more and more international and boundaries are constantly shifting and influenced. It seems as if there will always be an intermediary between the masses and their continuously collected data. therefore, it’s hard to navigate in ethics, and right and wrongs, when it comes to data.
I have not encountered any encouragement to be critical when presented with data before but I’m sure that the near future will present more information and possibilities to share knowledge of previously undisclosed infrastructures and data dimensions.

# MiniX 002 


This mini exercise I will try to be laid my hands on activities that I experienced at the workshop made by Nikolai creating one with computers to data. Furthermore, I will put my experience in perspective to look tons notion of becoming with data. 

Data is a hard concept to grasp it is everywhere and ever present but it’s not always visible to us. Therefore, we try to put metaphors or pictures I’ll try to conceptualize data to better understand how it’s working how it can be worked with. My personal experience with data thus far is that the more I work with it in different ways than what I am aware of the properties and the affordances that it has. Because it is both invisible and visible at the same time it is the foundation underneath every interface that I see but it’s also a building block almost like Lego when I’ve had opportunity to work with had to create websites or earlier in my bachelor-degree when I had to make pieces of code perform in a certain way. 

Data is created and wondered pieces of human life it can be small data regarding an individual, but it can also be used in greater schemes when they’re aggregated and become big data. There is a huge difference in these digital spaces and platforms where data flows and shapes the dimensions. 

” Many of these data traces are collected, accessed and exploited by other actors and agencies, often without people’s knowledge or consent. In some cases, however, people can view and use the data thus produced about them. ” (Lupton)

To try and get a better understanding of the materiality of data and how data can take a new form we were creating some sort of physical computing I was processing my knowledge and my vision and understanding of data in a very tangible, physical, and easier to understand way. Connecting wires, LEDs, and boards, deepened my understanding of sensory wiring data infrastructures. 

” I have previously proposed that one way of conceptualising digital data assemblages (which bring together humans-devices-software-data-space-time) is thinking of them metaphorically as ‘lively’” (Ibid)

Luton is proposing that we have to conceptualize data and think of them as something lively, or give them a form, to try and understand them better. This combined with my workshop experience, has made me understand that myself and people in general after responding to something that they don’t understand by creating metaphors or labels they have experience with. So far data has been something it has been dematerialized and humanized but a modern-day interpretation will have us understand the data is almost something lively because it consists of data from human lives it turns into a repository of experiences, wants, and needs, and collective habits. The material culture, presented in: ‘How Do Data Come to Matter? Living and Becoming with Personal Data’ by Deborah Lupton, includes some reflections on the decay and degradation of materials and artefacts the same degradation and decay has started to influence a lot of texts and academic writings have a date as well because we are beginning to understand the data is repurposed reused censored stolen and deleted and therefore it takes on a new level of materiality because it has a lifetime, and it is changeable even though it’s intangible. 

Data is influencing a lot of individual people’s life but maybe even more so, it is influencing culture. It is showing us our flaws and our bias which is also present in Lupton’s text about feministic practices and female presence. A part of some sort of self-tracking the data is becoming a part of our lives and therefore part of us and it is therefore shaping our collective state of mind and thereby our cultures. 

” In this essay, I have contended that personal data, like other forms of mediated representations of bodies and selves, are dynamic assemblages of humans and nonhumans that are constantly subject to change.” (Ibid)

# MiniX 003

By Charlotte, Sille, Sophie and Rikke

What interests us in the readings is how closely monetarism is related to both mass digitalization and datafication. Since the purpose of both can seem pure or sincere, it seems that the motivation is making money/value of human life: “datafication combines two processes: the transformation of human life into data through processes of quantification, and the generation of different kinds of value from data.” (Mejias et al., 2019: 3). However, it could be that the initial interest was to “(…) enrich the public sphere with more information, not to build an information monopoly” (Thylstrup, 2019: 48), but in the case of Google and Google Books, the value of information became so high that the amount of information or data exceeded the expectations. It is interesting how datafication has come to be “one of the major social questions of our time” (Mejias et al, 2019: 7). It raises many questions regarding privacy and politics. The price for living in a digitalized society is data, contributing to the growing amount of valuable data, which can be sold to third parties to “persuade users into various goals” (Mejias et al, 2019: 3).

However, the effects of power that are intrinsic to datafication are often made invisible or obscured by much-used metaphors, such as ‘data is the new oil’. The understanding of data as raw materials that can be mined from the ‘ground’ of social life, brings with it an opportunity to sidestep the misappropriation or exploitation that might arise from data usage. As a result, corporations like Google use our data as if it was indicative of who we are and how we act in our social life. If we assume that data exists naturally we run the risk of becoming too dependent on external and privatised data measurement to tell us who we are, what we are feeling, and what we should be doing. This could threaten our basic conceptions of human agency and knowledge because the production and sale of data can be used to restrain our actions or worldviews. This is for example the case with Google’s mass digitization plans for Google Books. Google’s decision to partner with elite university libraries and national libraries created a class and genre bias in the production of data for Google Books, enforcing the worldview of higher class people in anglophone countries. To correct this misunderstanding we need to challenge the idea of datafication as a new paradigm for understanding human behavior. Instead of assuming that data can be mined from the ‘ground’ of social life, we need to understand it as “the material produced by abstracting the world into categories, measures and other representational forms that constitute the building blocks from which information and knowledge are created” (Kitchin, 2014: 1).

There are huge consequences regarding datafication, and its continuous exponential growth. The speed challenged and violated the rights and laws associated with analog artefact that now are transformed into digital artefacts. The speed does not match up with the speed of legislation. It creates a clash between the traditional infrastructures of the analog (in this case books) and the new digital infrastructures (in this case Google Books). A wide variety of academic disciplines are now analyzing aspects of those consequences, and underlining how important the balance between power and knowledge is. This balance is not yet fully established or transparent, as big corporations are using huge amounts of personal data for monetary gains, often, without the knowledge of their users/consumers. It is important to have a critical interpretation of datafication as “a means to access […] and monitor people’s behavior” (Van Dijck, 2014: 1478). Acknowledging datafication and its possibilities to shape our near future, is a new way of understanding and interpreting the world. Shoshana Zuboff (2019) argues that “what we are living through, is a new stage of ‘surveillance capitalism’ in which human experience becomes the raw material that produces the behavioural data used to influence and even predict our actions”.

Datafication has many valuable qualities, however, through these readings - and many more - we are left with questions regarding whether or not our human rights are being violated, what are we contributing to, and with what are we contributing? How personal is personal data, and is there any way to avoid feeding into a system that’s essentially a control mechanism meant to control and monitor you? There is an analytical value in datafication, when analyzing its ability to name and render processes and the frameworks, by which a new form of extractivism is unfolding. For now, it’s important to gain insights and access, to understand datafication in it’s many forms. This, to create a dynamic relationship between power and knowledge, corporations and users - so that the future is a co-creation, and not predetermined, biased and driven by monetary goals.

References
Thylstrup, Nanna Bonde. The politics of mass digitization. MIT Press, 2019. (The Trials, Tribulations, and Transformations of Google Books pp.37-55)

Mejias, Ulises A. and Nick Couldry. “Datafication”. Internet Policy Review 8.4 (2019). Web. 16 Feb. 2021. https://policyreview.info/concepts/datafication



Block assignment

https://codimd.student.chcaa.au.dk/B6D8vlFnSYGAKy62GzNEqA?view#Group-Block-Assignment-001


# MiniX 004 

What’s the relation between code, big data and platforms?

To understand the relationship between code, big data, and platforms, I’ve started by trying to define them individually in a short and simple matter. When searching for a definition of code, Oxford’s English dictionary describes it as: a system of words, letters, figures, or symbols used to represent others, especially for the purposes of secrecy. But in a computer context, the definition presented is: program instructions. These programmed instructions can gather data about the people interacting with it, when using the platforms constructed by code. Big data is defining collections of data with huge variety and information in large quantities. A platform, in its digital form is defined as an environment in which a piece of software is executed.

It’s hard to fully understand and uncover the infrastructures between these phenomena, as they’re co-dependent and interwoven, and thereby hard to separate. Their relation becomes clear, when analyzing the artwork ’The Hidden Life of an Amazon User’ by Joana Moll (2019), as she locates them on a website. 
The platform, using big data, in this week’s readings is Amazon. Joana Moll is exploring the hidden datafication, that the majority of users aren’t seeing, or aware of. 

This also leads me to be more and more critical towards these phenomena. 
Big data is the data used by big corporations to cater to their users’ habits and needs, not necessarily with the user’s well-being in mind – but primarily with monetary gain as the goal. 

Merino

Merino is critical, when presenting code, and the limited access and understanding most people engage it with. He calls our time a modern moment and describes a growing significance of computer source code. This is also why; he underlines the importance of code literacy and “tinkering”. The more people are aware and able to engage and influence code, the more dimensions they are able to add. Code is not only programmed instructions, but also a mean of communication, a unique set of languages, it has increasingly become art and part of protests too.  

” It has moved beyond the realm of programmers and entered the realm of mainstream media and partisan political blogosphere. Those discussing code may not be programmers or have much fluency in the languages of the code they are quoting, but they are using it to make, refute, and start arguments.” (pp. 3) 

His article begins with a case of people misunderstanding, or purposely misinterpreting an unfinished piece of code – visualizing and describing climate change. The inherent code illiteracy creates the fundament for multiple arguments and conspiracy theories. This could have been avoided, if only code literacy was more prominent in the broader public. He describes the lacking knowledge of code and its functions as a danger to the people subjugated to it. 

” The operations of the code are left in the hands of those who can access it, usually those who have made or maintain it, and those who can read it. If code governs so much of our lives, then to understand its operations is to get some sense of the systems that operate on us. If we leave the hiero glyphs to the hierarchs, then we are all subjects of unknown and unseen processes.” (pp.4)

In his article, he presents a case, in which, code has been written on a cardboard as a part of a protest. Code, in this form, is excluded from the digital infrastructure it’s usually a part of – making it unable to “function” or run its instructions. In context to the previous mentioned relation between code, big data, and platforms – this piece of analogue code, will not provide any digital data – and that in itself becomes a creative protest. I find this very interesting in regard to the critical view on code and the consequences opaque codes create in digital dimensions. The most important part of this article, for me, was code – in situations where it was removed from its original context – and most importantly, how culture plays a huge part in how we perceive things and engage with things. Code, in a social and cultural context, sheds light on endless possibilities for its development and use in the future.

Do you consider Joana’s Moll has used some of the approaches and perspectives of critical code studies?

The artwork, “The Hidden Life of An Amazon User” by Joana Moll, is presenting the user/viewer with 3 sets of information in bright red on top of seemingly endless pages of code in the background. The things she highlights is Mb, Wh and kcal. 
She describes the process in making her artwork as follows:

“I was able to track 1,307 different requests to all sort of scripts and documents, totaling 8,724 A4 pages worth of printed code, adding up to 87.33MB of information. The amount of energy needed to load each of the twelve web interfaces, along with each one’s endless fragments of code, was approximately 30 wh”.

It seemed funny to me at first, that she chose to include kcal in the artwork, as this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with data, or the importance of the other values she identified on Amazon. But in context to Marino’s text, with focus on exploring how people understand through relations – I wondered if the kcal count was included to give the user something relatable as a context to the other values. Initially I liked the inclusion of the kcal, but the more I engaged with the artwork, the more it frustrated me – because I ended up scrolling for a long time and focused on how many calories my scrolling would amount to. This, as a means to get the user to relate the more foreign values – made it seem like the other values weren’t that big of a deal. Furthermore, the inclusion of kcal didn’t deepen my understanding of the other values consequences in the context of engaging with Amazon and its underlying code-web, nor did it help me deepen my understanding of code. Therefore, I argue, that one could’ve included other values with more quality regarding the broader understanding of code. 

What are the opportunities and potentials of code-related methods? 

I think that coding is a new field for the broader public, an unknown dimension which most have never thought they could decipher or influence. As it’s becoming a hot topic, both socially, in terms of law and ethics, and politically – it calls for critical approaches, and further education of the masses. The more people are aware of code, data, datafication and big data – the more caution they will use in their interactions with technologies. Further knowledge and skills in terms of reading and understanding code, will hopefully lead to the broader public being able to protect their personal rights and push data and code into a new era of transparency. 

There are almost endless dimensions behind the interfaces we are presented with daily, and therefore not a single person or organization to take responsibility for the transparency and the ethical use of digital infrastructures. The positive changes, that would be transparency, less surveillance and manipulation (in the use of Big Data), will take a long time. Changes don’t happen overnight, especially not changes empowering the public, educating them to unravel the puppet strings that have been controlling their online presence for too long. 

# MiniX 004A
# 
I have deepened my understanding of data and code as phenomena. How they're intertwined, and ever present in the digital dimensions of the modern world. 

I have understood the power of critical approaches - not only to be oposed to something or denounce it, but in terms of how I engage and interact with things.
A critical approach is vital when engaging in things I don't understand, and involves curiosity and questions asked, transparency and through that a sense of co-creating. What is important to me, is the power balance undergoing changes, so that one part isn't sitting with all the knowledge and power - but knowledge and power being fairly and openly distributed (open source)

I've also come to understand more dimensions of meteriality - and how it's not just something tangible and in reach, but can take various forms and shapes. 

Schöns notion of conversations with the materials is also sticking with me throughout the classes I've been through in this course. 

# MiniX 005

In this miniX, I’ll explore the term web choreographies through William Forsynthe’s article; ‘Choreographic Objects’ and Joana Chicau’s artworks and performances. 

When presented with the term web choreography I immediately start thinking about movements and dancing. Human movements and acts performed for an audience perhaps in a theatre or on a big screen. The word web implies to me that screen of technology where a choreography might unfold and take place with a view it becomes an audience. Joana Chicau describes this performance, of web choreography, as a spiritual journey inside online environments. This presents an innovative way of thinking about choreography as it breaks boundaries to what a choreography might imply.

When researching Joanna further I reach her webpage. On the very front of the page, in a huge font, a quote is presented – which highlights Joana’s work with web choreography.  

“Bringing choreographic thinking into interface design — developing new ways of navigating through physical & digital environments. ” (https://joanachicau.com)

Joana Chicau is a graphic designer, researcher and coder, with a background in choreography and performance. This creates a foundation for exploring and expanding the boundaries between the different spheres of work she’s been engaging with. 

”Her methodolgy explores how design and coding practices interfere deeper with interface design and information displays — when considering choreographic thinking, embodiment and new movement perception possibilities. ” (ibid) 

The project, which I’ll focus on in this assignment is; 

Tango for us Two/ Too  
This project highlights her innovative way of performing choreographies. Furthermore, it investigate the possibilities of technological frameworks, consisting of underlying code and software – on top of which, or in front of which, the performance takes place. I will further focus on the components and (web)choreography of; Tango for us Two/ Too, as it’s an interesting paradox to create a web choreography from a dance – consisting of choreographed movements between two partners. The very definition of choreography is changing, unfolding, and expanding in this specific project.

Joana describes the project as an aim to investigate the current practice of Tango. The project is described in three parts; 
”The first part introduces Tango as an improvisation-based choreography with a set of code which defines random movement on “x” and “y” axis; The second part explores the dialogical nature of Tango, exploring google (mis)translation platform with fragments of texts from interviews with Tango dancers. In the last moment, it is presented an actual Tango. ” 
(https://vimeo.com/183842239#) 

When watching the performance unfold, I begin to understand the term web choreography. As I’m presented with an interface, consisting of google translate boxes. Two boxes continuously move around the screen, as if they’re dancing a tango with one another. At the end of the performance, Joana herself dances in front of the displayed interface. The boxes have been blacked out, and their purpose transcends the interface. Joana is dancing with the projections, in front of them, drawing them ever closer to the spectator. 
William Forsythe describes in his article how objects can be choreographed; 

”A choreographic object is, by nature, open to a full range of unmediated perceptual instigations without having to prioritize any type of recipient. These objects are examples of specific physical circumstances that isolate fundamental classes of motion activation and organization.” (Forsythe, William n.d)

Objects are limited in their form but can be used in multiple ways and extend and transcend through interaction and in this case choreography. Joana Chicau extends the interface, engages with it, and gives it a new range of tangibility through her tango.  The interaction between human and object, in a choreographed dance, and the web choreography presented in Joanas projects, leads to innovation in multiple fields, and the evolution of established boundaries and definitions that previously existed. 

”This has been key to the evolution and perception of choreographic procedures, and to prohibit or constrain this process of terminological migration across fields of arts practice” (Forsythe, William n.d)

# MiniX006

In this weeks assignment I'll focus on the difference between reading websites and books through the following questions:

* What’s the difference of reading a website digitally and a book physically? 
* What’s the difference in terms of infrastructure 
-such as the concepts of page, hyperlinks, file arrangement, reading, writing and organizational tools, etc)? 


> The main differences that first comes into mind:


The tangible aspects, the book being a physical/analog object, whereas the website is a digital construct.  

The Infrastructures, where a book is an individual construct of information printed on paper, and the websites consisting of a broader network of pages.These are being bound together by hyperlinks, an html technology, making it easier to go form website to website, finding relevant information. 

The content on webpages is susceptible to changes- and websites exist in many forms and formats. Ex. Blogs, news, recipes, information, academic articles etc. 




"Hyperlinks are the main web-native objects creating this dynamic web of relations and web devices intervene in the assemblage by mediating the hyperlink through software and platform features."

![](https://i.imgur.com/7BoA1eq.png)

```
The network diagram displayed in Illustration 1 is a visual representation of a directed graph, that is, ‘every link has a source and a target’
```



**Granular certainty:** breaking something into small parts, so it’s easier to understand and manage. “To create something small, was to create something that could be apprehended, understood and connected to something else. 
**Purpose:** so that it could be coordinated and readily assembled into a whole. 

When applying this term to reading both books and websites, it becomes clear, that the two reading formats can be fragmented in different ways.


In terms of books, parts could be gathered in folders, and then stored (alphabetical) in vertical cabinets. This made it possible to organize fragments of information and files, and store them in folders under the same topic – or with relevance to other files or books. Hyperlinks are like the vertical book cabinet – they create links between pages of the same topic, or with relevance to each other. The order here isn't alphabetical, but regards the value of certain links to determine their order. 



**Litteratur:**
1. Helmond, Anna. (2013). The algorithmization of the hyperlink. Computational Culture, (3).
2. Robertson, Craig. (2021). “File.” Uncertain Archives: Critical Keywords for Big Data. Thylstrup, N. B., Agostinho, D., Ring, A., D’Ignazio, C., & Veel, K. (Eds.). MIT Press, pp. 241-247
3. Rieder, Bernhard. (2013). ‘Scrutinizing a Network of Likes on Facebook (and Some Thoughts on Network Analysis and Visualization).’ The Politics of Systems. July 10. http://thepoliticsofsystems.net/2013/07/scrutinizing-a-network-of-likes-on-facebook-and-some-thoughts-on-network-analysis-and-visualization/. 


# block assignment 3 

**Data representation**

We are living in an increasingly digital world, in which we are constantly engaging with- and producing data. Data, in its raw form, can be hard to make sense of on its own, because it often represents large amounts of information in numeral forms. This is one of the reasons why most of us are familiar with data visualizations. Data visualizations are tools to communicate information and data, in an accessible way for viewers to easily comprehend. Data visualizations consists of visual tools, like graphs, drawings, charts, maps, and other visuals – in which data is grouped and presented in a context, that gives the viewer a clear idea regarding the communicated information. Jonathan Gray describes data visualization as “critical literacy for sensemaking of our surroundings” (Gray et al, 2016. Pp. 291). Data visualizations are powerful tools, that represent particular ways of seeing the world, knowing the world and are also describes by Gray as a mean to organize collective life in a digital age (Gray et al, 2016. Ibid). 

*" (…) data visualizations are said to amplify our senses and our abilities to make sense of the world around us. But data visualizations are not a neutral tool. They come with particular ways of seeing, particular analytical, mediation and narrative regimes regarding which we ought to be attentive as we use them to do research and tell stories" (Gray et al, 2016. Pp. 292)* 


In context to the quote above, data visualization can be defined as a sensemaking tool, used to understand, to explain, and to deliver information as true to the source as it can be. Visualization of data uncovers patterns and trends and establishes the relation between large amounts of data. When working with data, as Gray et al. mentions above, viewers have to be aware, and perhaps critical, as to where the data is from, what purpose the visualization serves, and what particular narrative it presents for the viewer. To understand underlying aspects of data and their various visualizations, I’ve used some theories presented in the article; *‘Ways of Seeing Data: Toward a Critical Literacy for Data Visualizations as Research Objects and Research Devices’* , for analytical purposes regarding my own dataset and process with mediating and visualizing it (Gray et al. 2016) I have chosen to focus on the process of mediating and transforming data, which Gray et al. calls from data to image, and from image to eye.  

**1.	From data to image** 

When working with a dataset and figuring a way to represent it in a graphical form, I’m aware that I’m adding a layer of designed aspects and perhaps creating a visualization that is emotionally relatable for women who have gone through period related symptoms and pain. By adding icons to a drawing of a woman, rather an art piece; an ancient statue of a Greek woman, I’m creating a data visualization that’s not easy to interpret without context or guidance. I have assigned different symptoms in my dataset (fig 3.) to flowers of different colours. Hereafter, I have added the flowers onto the body of the woman, so that their placement matches the period pain depicted in the dataset. This can be things as stomach aches – a flower placed on the stomach, headaches etc. The graphical techniques used are very feminine – with the use of Icons and colours, the data isn’t visual without context. The data visualization is made in a program called Canva, which is a platform providing icons and editing tools to create visuals. 

**2.	From image to eye**
 
I have been very aware of how my data visualization appears to the eye and to the mind of viewers. As periods are a global phenomenon for women, I wanted to represent it in a beautiful way – a feminine way! Periods are treated differently all over the world, celebrated in some countries, and resented in others. It’s a topic that’s hard to talk about, it might be taboo for some, and because of that, I’ve chosen to meet my viewers with an art piece – which, upon more investigation or interest, can tell a story, and represent women’s struggles. It would be fun to see this piece as an interactive representation for women in pain related to periods – where they could add onto it and place their own flowers. In this way the data visualization has potential to represent girls and women from this moment onwards, opening a safe place to talk about periods and related struggles.

 ![](https://i.imgur.com/nUlv0YW.png)

 
Nynnes lection taught me that data, in its most neutral representation or visualization, can be the most manipulating. Furthermore, she made me aware, that data visualization with feminine connotations, drawings, or flimsy styles – were taken less seriously than that made to look neutral and with no emotional or artsy connection. 

When representing data, I’ve been aware to represent a truth, something reflecting a statistic or dataset. But the more I worked towards understanding data representation, the more I wanted to represent something flimsy, something feminine and hard to translate or represent in one true form. Thus, I started searching for data regarding menstrual cycles or period pain – first in a group at Nynnes lection, later at home with more interest in themes and feminine connotations. I have chosen to represent pain and symptoms in the form of flowers of different sizes and colors. This because the flower has so many ties to what it means to be a woman through times. Being delicate, blossoming, being deflowered, fading, beauty etc. Experiencing ones first period, can be translated to a girl blossoming, turning into a woman. Nynne presented different creative constraints, and I was drawn to the one called closing the gap. This constraint meant connecting the data to the source, and by doing so, creating a deeper understanding – or experiencing the data visualization differently. Presenting data on a body is something that made me connect with the meaning of the data in a new way. Translating pain, through beautiful objects, is a funny paradox. Romanticizing something painful, with a natural organic object, trying to represent the natural aspect of bodily functions and changes. 

I had different ideas on how this flower/body representation could take form. First, I tried mapping the pain through flowers on the actual body, drawing the different values of the flowers used – representing pain levels. This sketch and idea come close to the finished product, wherein I have chosen to map period symptoms with flowers on an ancient Greece statue showing a woman with curves. Instead of using flowers that depict pain levels, I have made this data visualization based on a data set from Harvard university, regarding period symptoms, and the percentages of women experiencing said symptoms. 

 ![](https://i.imgur.com/BcqgF1C.png)



My second sketch depicted women of different ethnicities, in flowers, where the stem height of the flower depicted pain levels or amount of period symptoms experienced – as I had previously seen dataset focusing on ethnicities. But the difference in pain level and experienced symptoms wasn’t very big, and often due to other factors than ethnicity alone. Therefore, I choose to work on universal period symptoms, rather than focusing on different groups of women. This to make the finished product relatable for all women.  



 ![](https://i.imgur.com/V3qFQq2.png)




In the article: ’What role does Emotion play in data visualization’ Catherine D’Ignazio uncovers the emotional aspect of data visualization. She presents the term:"do good with data", in context of datasets regarding victims of gun violence in America. This leads her to encourage people to highlight and present data, that are hard to talk about and relate to for the majority. My process and final product have developed with emotional relevance and relation in mind. My starting point was how data visualization could be framed around emotions, as a critique of emotions often being left out of data visualizations all together. 

Feminine stereotypes are still being portrayed in data and the way it’s visualized.  D’Ignazio highlights emotions as being labeled a feminine trait by society. That's why I've chosen to represent data with art, icons and colors in a very designed, visual space that encourages the viewer to connect the data values to certain flower icons to make sense of the data visualization, because I would like to challenge the stereotypes about emotions in men and women. In this project, I’ve sought to leave out such stereotypes, as they are often amplified in digital spaces. 

>  ***Binary logic is dated and should be irrelevant when representing modern data!***


**Bibliography**

Gray, Jonathan, Liliana Bounegru, Stefania Milan, and Paolo Ciuccarelli. 2016. 
‘Ways of Seeing Data: Toward a Critical Literacy for Data Visualizations as Research Objects and Research Devices’. 

D’Ignazio, Catherine. 2020. 
’What Role Does Emotion Play in Data Visualization?’. 

D’Ignazio, Catherine & Klein, Lauren F. 2020.
’Chapter 3: On Rational, Scientific, Objective Viewpoints from Mythical,Imaginary, Impossible Standpoints,’ 
Data Feminism Reading Group. Chapter 3 from the book Data Feminism

Menstrual symptom data can help end period stigma, Apple woman’s health study. 2021.
Harvard T.H. CHAN, school of public health
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/applewomenshealthstudy/updates/menstrual-symptom-data-can-help-end-period-stigma/ 

Santoro, Nanette et al. 2004. 
’Body Size and Ethnicity Are Associated with Menstrual Cycle Alterations in Women in the Early Menopausal Transition: The Study of Women’s Health across the Nation (SWAN) Daily Hormone Study’, The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 89, Issue 6. Pages 2622–2631,
https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2003-031578

Grandi, Giovanni et al. 2021. 
’Prevalence of menstrual pain in young women: what is dysmenorrhea?’ 
Journal of pain research vol. 5 169-74. 
doi:10.2147/JPR.S30602 

