1901 – Davenport’s Physical Distributions

In 1901, biologist Charles Davenport "built" physical visualizations that show the distributions of features of objects and people. These visualizations were made out of the objects and the people themselves. The purpose was to explain the notion of statistical distribution to a lay audience. On the left image, seashells are piled up according to how many ribs they have. On the middle image, students are arranged in bins according to their height. […]

Added by Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization. Tags: distribution, education, participatory, people, rearrangeable, rearrangement

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1973 – Mazamet Ville Morte

In 1973, the French town of Mazamet had a population that closely matched the nationwide number of motor vehicule deaths across the previous year. A TV reporter decided to show all inhabitants lying on the floor to symbolize these deaths. Source: Marieaunet (2010) 1973 Mazamet ville morte.

Added by Pierre Dragicevic, sent by Charles Nepote. Category: Passive physical visualization. Tags: deaths, participatory, people, rearrangement, single-datum

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1991 – Münster Congestion Visualization

In order to encourage bus use, in 1991 the city of Münster, Germany created a poster that compares the space taken by 72 bicycles (left), 72 cars (middle), and a bus (right). This idea is not new. For example, the city of London has made a very similar poster in 1965. Thanks to Will Stahl-Timmins for pointing this out. Sources: Benjamin Starr (2014) How Much Space Do Cars Take? Cyclists Demonstrate How Bicycles Flight […]

Added by Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization. Tags: city, participatory, people, rearrangement, traffic, transportation

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2008 – 100% City

Since 2008, the German theater group Rimini Protokoll organizes performances where they select 100 people in such a way that they form a representative sample of a given city, and then invites them on the stage. Each person briefly introduces themselves, after which everyone participates in a series of physical visualizations where each person takes the role of a data point. The first performance was titled […]

Added by Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Active physical visualization. Tags: city, participatory, people

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2011 – Ursus Wehrli’s Art of Clean Up

Ursus Wehrli, a Swiss comedian and artist, is known for his parodic art project called "Tidying up Art", where he rearranges well-known paintings in an orderly fashion (see his 2003 book and his 2006 TED Talk). In 2011, he started a project called "The Art of Clean Up" where he rearranges everyday objects and people. Also see our other entries on physical visualizations created by rearrangement. Sources: […]

Added by Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization. Tags: art, participatory, people, rearrangement

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2016 – Motus Forma: People’s Motions in a Shared Space

Motus Forma is a data sculpture by Brian Allen and Stephanie Smith that aggregates 10 hours of people movements in the lobby space at Pier 9. The 1300+ motion paths are piled up according to time. Also see our other entries on temporal data. Sources: Autodesk (2016) Motus Forma Instructables (2016) Motus Forma Photo by Pierre Dragicevic

Added by Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization. Tags: 3d printing, data sculpture, people, temporal data

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2020 – COVID-19 Deaths as Nails

An art installation in the Cathedral of Schwäbisch Gmünd (Germany) shows COVID-19 deaths as nails hammered into wooden cubes. More nails are added as the number of deaths increase. The text down the steps says "Fürchtet euch nicht", meaning "do not be afraid". Also see our other entries on single-datum physical visualizations and on conveying deaths. Sources: Tweet from Friedrich Hart (@mxfh), Dec 9, 2020. SWR (2020) […]

Added by Pierre Dragicevic, sent by Friedrich Hart. Category: Passive physical visualization. Tags: covid-19, deaths, nails, people, single-datum

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The views expressed on this page are not necessarily the views of the curators and of their respective institutions. This collection is CC-BY-SA. If you reuse or adapt it, please reference this page. See BibTeX for citing.

		
		@Misc{physlist,
	    	Title                    = {List of Physical Visualizations},
	    	Author                   = {Dragicevic, Pierre and Jansen, Yvonne},
	    	HowPublished             = {\href{http://www.dataphys.org/list}{www.dataphys.org/list}},
	    	Note                     = {Last accessed Mar 2021},
	    	Year                     = {2012}
			}