Tag Archives: Data Visualization

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This past weekend I finally had the chance to go back to MoMA. Since the last time I was there, one of the previous shows I visited had closed and two new ones were opened. I attended the two shows- “Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection” and “Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction”. I started off with similar note-taking that I have done before, recording what is on display, information provided, set up, etc…

Upon looking at these findings, I ended up coming up with a method to better organize my findings.The title of the exhibition is shortened in the middle, with the number on top symbolizing the spaces available to contemplate the art/rest and the bottom number any additional resources immediately available (such as exhibition catalogues or books about specific artists). The color/line around it represented my overall feeling/mood while in the exhibition. The dashes in the circle represent each piece and label on display and are meant to be read clockwise in the order of the exhibition itself. It ends up coming full circle as the exhibition spaces at MoMA always lead back to the start of the exhibition. The orange “i” coming out of each represents additional information provided about the piece or artist that made it. The red lines along the outside represent what I observed as acting barriers between the viewer and pieces. “MS” (Making Space) additionally catalogued all of the works according to genre type so I chose to demonstrate that by separating them off into colored sections.

“Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction” Data

“Unfinished Conversations: New Work from the Collection” Data

I’m really liking this organization style and am working on transferring the data I have already on past exhibitions into this same format. I am hoping to go back to MoMA again for a third time in the next couple of weeks, perhaps on a weekday where I will be able to directly compare the experience of visiting the museum outside of the peak weekend times that I have visited during. I will be utilizing data collected about the museum visits as well to create another data visualization similar to the current setup I have.

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For my second visualization, I wanted to directly visualize and represent part of my experience visiting MoMA and relate it to the ideas of engagement of the viewer/visitor, and resources immediately available (two key points from my lit review). I found as I made the visualization, I began to consider how the colors I use can contribute to the imagery of data I put in. Next to each exhibit title, I included a colored line that is representative of my experience and feeling while in the exhibit itself (“Revolutionary Inside” was particularly overwhelming). Creating this visualization also made me have to look closer at how information was presented to the viewers and any times that visitors were either encouraged/discouraged from interacting with the art and how so. I think as I continue to visit MoMA and continue these types of observations, I will also be able to better compose the data.

I was really inspired by a project I recently found called Dear Data (interestingly enough, it was recently acquired for MoMA’s permanent collection). I thought it was interesting how the images from each post card came together as both an individual image, as well as a collection for data/observations. I am interested in further studying the way that the data that the two artists observed is transformed into imagery for my own observations at MoMA.

 

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Jennifer Brannigan
2/19/17
Data Visualization

For this first data visualization, I decided to map visually my students understanding to the key concepts of two-point perspective and its key components. As a wrap up activity, I asked students to chart where they thought they might be in each category. The first category was vanishing points and the midway, i.e finding the center to where everything begins to pull back into space and to one of the vanishing points, the second was placing objects in a two dimensional space, and the third was the horizon line. For these three categories, students received three post-it notes. They were asked to initial the back, so that it would stay anonymous. Once they did this, they were asked to one post-it note under each category. They had three options for this also. The first- I understand this 100 percent, the second- I understand some of this, 75 percent, and the third- I really don’t understand this at all, less than 50 percent. Students charted themselves on their own personal bias, and they were asked to be honest so that I could better help them.

Once students mapped their post-it notes, I took them down section by section and listed their names so that I could see where everyone was feeling confident, or not understanding what we had been doing. This was for my own personal data collection and use, and it helped me better understand the key concepts that I had to re-teach for the next couple days.

For the actual visualization, I started with layering two colors of inks, one a cerulean blue, and the other a red iron oxide. I picked these two colors because I felt as though they were fitting for the ideas that surrounded this data. Blue being clarity, red being the uncertainty that students felt during this process. I washed both inks under the faucet in my apartment so that they would mix with one another, and create a misty or cloudy like quality. My thought behind this, was that even the students who marked themselves at 100 percent for all of the sections, still struggled, even slightly, with the application of these concepts. On top of these ink washes, I started to make a different looped mark for each one of the sections. After I completed these marks, I went back and created either a ring, or a dot around these marks. Each ring represents the number or class that each student is on. For example, four rings= freshman, one=senior.

With this visualization, I was able to see that my sophomores, except for one student all understood the three concepts at 100 percent. Which tells me that they way that I teach, or the way that they understand what I am teaching are almost perfectly aligned. My freshman were mostly in the 100 percent to 75 percent range. I had only two students under “ placing objects in a two dimensional space” say that they didn’t understand this concept at all. One student has a 504 plan, and the other has an IEP.