In analytics and statistics, data visualisations, such as the heatmap, are used as tools bring forward patterns in data. These data visualisations, are often presented as objective tools of knowledge: data supposedly do not lie. What is often neglected however, are the subjective and political intricacies embedded within the datasets, and its method of visualisation. In collaboration with Cristina Cochior I am exploring the concept of data dramatisations, as an opposite to data visualisations. Rather than aiming for the objective, we explore the affective & performative aspects of data gathering and processing.
Sustaining Gazes is a data dramatisation which looks at the role between the visualisation and its subject. A heatmap is generated by looking at it, which directly influences the looking. Areas which are looked at turn into interesting shapes, inviting even more observation. The pattern of looking is reinforced though its visualisation. This cycle reveals both a hierarchy of power between algorithm and subject, as well as a point for intervention.