1890 – Polynesian Genealogical Instrument

This artefact from the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia) served as a memory aid for reciting genealogies during ceremonies. Each thread, made of woven coconut fiber, is a genealogical line and each knot is a generation. The genealogy goes back to the mythical origins of Earth, materialized by the oblong ball on top, made of wood (see left image). The date of the artefact is unknown. It was collected by Alphonse Long, French navy physician, while he was on duty in the Marquesas Islands […]

This artefact from the Marquesas Islands (French Polynesia) served as a memory aid for reciting genealogies during ceremonies. Each thread, made of woven coconut fiber, is a genealogical line and each knot is a generation. The genealogy goes back to the mythical origins of Earth, materialized by the oblong ball on top, made of wood (see left image). The date of the artefact is unknown. It was collected by Alphonse Long, French navy physician, while he was on duty in the Marquesas Islands between 1882 and 1891. Such objects are rare and poorly studied. This one was acquired by the Musée du quai Branly in 2012 for 73,000€. Sources: Photos taken in May 2015 at the Musée du quai Branly (see label). Musée du quai Branly, Rapport d'activité 2012. Pierrick Moritz (2012) Le musée du quai Branly préempte deux objets des Îles Marquises chez Christie's.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: anthropology, genealogy

1970 – Byron's Bender

In the early 1970's, crystallographer Byron Rubin invented a tool that bends wires to make proteins models. The tool was popular until the 1990s. Byron Rubin became an artist who builds large-scale molecular sculptures. Eric Martz and Eric Francoeur explain how such physical models yielded important scientific insights: An example illustrating the importance of models from Byron's Bender occurred at a scientific meeting in the mid 1970's. At this time, less than two dozen protein structures had […]

In the early 1970's, crystallographer Byron Rubin invented a tool that bends wires to make proteins models. The tool was popular until the 1990s. Byron Rubin became an artist who builds large-scale molecular sculptures. Eric Martz and Eric Francoeur explain how such physical models yielded important scientific insights: An example illustrating the importance of models from Byron's Bender occurred at a scientific meeting in the mid 1970's. At this time, less than two dozen protein structures had been solved. David Davies brought a Bender model of an immunoglobulin Fab fragment, and Jane and David Richardson brought a Bender model of superoxide dismutase. While comparing these physical models at the meeting, they realized that both proteins use a similar fold, despite having only about 9% sequence identity. This incident was the first recognition of the occurrence of what is now recognized as the immunoglobulin superfamily domain in proteins that are apparently unrelated by sequence. The insight was published in a paper entitled "Similarity of three-dimensional structure between the immunoglobulin domain and the copper, zinc superoxide dismutase subunit" ( Richardson et al., J. Mol. Biol. 102:221-235, 1976). Sources: Byron Rubin. molecularsculpture.com. Eric Martz and Eric Francoeur (1997-2004) History of Visualization of Biological Macromolecules. Left image from molecularsculpture.com. Right image from The Journal of Biocommunication. Related: Also see the more recent DIWire device by Pensalabs.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Enabling technology Tags: chemistry, molecule, protein, science, steel

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

2013 – Doug McCune's Physical Maps

Doug McCune is a programmer turned artist, and he is obsessed with maps. In 2013, he got bored with screens and started to build physical thematic maps. He specializes in turning "horrible data" such as murders and natural disasters into beautiful objects. Above on the left is an artwork titled "stalagmite crime" that shows elevation maps of crime rates in San Francisco: narcotics-related crimes (green), prostitution (blue) and vehicle theft (orange). Sources: Doug McCune (2013) Physical Maps – […]

Doug McCune is a programmer turned artist, and he is obsessed with maps. In 2013, he got bored with screens and started to build physical thematic maps. He specializes in turning "horrible data" such as murders and natural disasters into beautiful objects. Above on the left is an artwork titled "stalagmite crime" that shows elevation maps of crime rates in San Francisco: narcotics-related crimes (green), prostitution (blue) and vehicle theft (orange). Sources: Doug McCune (2013) Physical Maps – My 360 | intersect Presentation. Doug McCune (2015) Deviant Cartography. Doug McCune (2015) Desperately Trying to Remove the Air Quotes Around the Word “Artist”.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: 3d printing, cartographic, cartography, digital fabrication, maps

2014 – #Good vs. #Evil

A race is going on between two Twitter hashtags, materialized by two cars. The blue car represents #Good, the red car represents #Evil. Source: Patrick Keller (2014). I&IC Workshop #3 at ECAL: output > “Botcaves” / Networked Data Objects.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Active physical visualization Tags: cars, robots, toys, tweets

2015 – Kohei Nakajima's Computing Tentacle

Kohei Nakajima and his colleagues argue that soft bodies are hard to control from a robotics perspective, but precisely because of their complex dynamics they can be used as information processing devices for solving hard computational problems. In a recent article they explain how they send inputs to a motor that wiggles a silicon tentacle, and read the system's output by sensing the arm's posture. I'm not entirely sure what's being calculated exactly, but the idea seems quite compelling. Also […]

Kohei Nakajima and his colleagues argue that soft bodies are hard to control from a robotics perspective, but precisely because of their complex dynamics they can be used as information processing devices for solving hard computational problems. In a recent article they explain how they send inputs to a motor that wiggles a silicon tentacle, and read the system's output by sensing the arm's posture. I'm not entirely sure what's being calculated exactly, but the idea seems quite compelling. Also see our other entries on physical computation. Sources: Nakajima et al (2015). Information processing via physical soft body (see video). Hauser et al (2014). Morphological Computation - The Body as a Computational Resource.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Physical model Tags: arm, morphological computing, physical computation, physical reservoir computing, silicon

2015 – Dan Gilbert's TV Ads

The famous psychology professor Dan Gilbert made a series of TV commercials for the insurance company Prudential, together with Ray Del Savio from Droga5 and Colin McConnell from Prudential. These TV commercials make a clever use of participatory physical visualizations to demonstrate and explain human biases in financial planning. Ribbon Experiment (left image): Dan Gilbert asks bystanders to estimate how much money they will need to retire. He then gives each of them a ribbon and asks them to […]

The famous psychology professor Dan Gilbert made a series of TV commercials for the insurance company Prudential, together with Ray Del Savio from Droga5 and Colin McConnell from Prudential. These TV commercials make a clever use of participatory physical visualizations to demonstrate and explain human biases in financial planning. Ribbon Experiment (left image): Dan Gilbert asks bystanders to estimate how much money they will need to retire. He then gives each of them a ribbon and asks them to cut it according to how long that amount will actually last. Ribbons are then assembled into a large-scale radial visualization. Age Stickers (middle image): Dan asks people how old is the oldest person they know, and gives each of them a sticker to place on a wall to construct a histogram. Magnets Experiment (right image): Dan asks people to recall something that happened in their past and something that might happen in their future. Good things are put on yellow magnets, while the bad ones are put on blue magnets. The resulting participatory visualization clearly shows that people tend to be overly optimistic about their future. Also make sure you watch the Dominoes Experiment which set a new world record for the tallest domino stone ever toppled, watch Dan Gilbert's amazing TED talks, and check out our other entries on participatory physical visualization and storytelling. Sources: Freakonomics podcast (2015) How to Make a Smart TV Ad. Photos above from Prudential Financial, Inc.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: participatory, storytelling, walkable

2015 – Multivariate Beer

Nathan Yau from flowingdata brewed four different types of beer based on county demographics. For example, he mapped population density to the total amount of hops, and race percentages to the type of hops used. He describes the process in detail on his web site, with R source code. The idea is reminiscent of Rohit Khot's TastyBeats shown at the CHI '14 conference, an installation that creates personalized energy drinks based on heart beat data. Sources: Nathan Yau (2015) Brewing Multivariate […]

Nathan Yau from flowingdata brewed four different types of beer based on county demographics. For example, he mapped population density to the total amount of hops, and race percentages to the type of hops used. He describes the process in detail on his web site, with R source code. The idea is reminiscent of Rohit Khot's TastyBeats shown at the CHI '14 conference, an installation that creates personalized energy drinks based on heart beat data. Sources: Nathan Yau (2015) Brewing Multivariate Beer (via the Partially Derivative podcast). Rohit Khot et al (2014) TastyBeats: Making Mocktails with Heart Beats. Related: Also see our entry on data cuisine

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: beer, data cuisine, demographics, food

2015 – London Eye Chart: A 135m Tall Donut Chart

One week before the UK general election of 2015, the design studio Bompas & Parr and Facebook turned the Ferris wheel of London into a giant donut chart of the political parties most discussed on Facebook. Blue stands for the Conservative Party and red stands for the Labour Party. Learn more. Sources: Bompas & Parr (2015) London Eye Chart. Photo by Bompas & Parr.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic, sent by: Loren Madsen. Category: Passive physical visualization Tags: large-scale, pie chart, politics, social networks

2015 – Physical Weather Display

Japanese Software engineer Ken Kawamoto invented the Tempescope, a device that displays weather forecasts or current weather physically. The Tempescope physically simulates weather forecasts via a wireless connection from a computer or a smartphone in real-time in order to get a better idea of what the actual weather is outside. Raining is simulated by water dripping down the box, temperature is represented by color-chaning LEDs and cloudiness is conveyed by a mist diffuser. Source: Dovas […]

Japanese Software engineer Ken Kawamoto invented the Tempescope, a device that displays weather forecasts or current weather physically. The Tempescope physically simulates weather forecasts via a wireless connection from a computer or a smartphone in real-time in order to get a better idea of what the actual weather is outside. Raining is simulated by water dripping down the box, temperature is represented by color-chaning LEDs and cloudiness is conveyed by a mist diffuser. Source: Dovas (2015) This Box Shows Tomorrow’s Weather On Your Table With REAL Rain And Clouds.

Added by: Pierre Dragicevic & Jean Vanderdonckt, sent by: Lora Oehlberg. Category: Active physical visualization Tags: weather