-
Dexter Callender III: “Light Sculptures, Matters of Impermanence”

I discovered Dexter’s work browsing through the MIT Lab Instagram account (yes, scrolling can have virtues!). For this particular project, Dexter Callender III mixed the use of software & code, observation of light pattern moving through specific buildings, glass cutting and assembling to create his series “Light Sculptures” that got him the 2024 MIT Schnitzer…
-
Weaving Data: A Discussion With Nathalie Miebach

The work of Nathalie Miebach is one of a kind. I would even say that Nathalie invented a new category of data-craft, data-art and scientific visualization, making her work immediately recognizable among others. Beyond the obvious aesthetic qualities of her art pieces, I see in her work the invention of an encoding method for environmental…
-
LivingMaps Network Conference Presentation – “Mapping Fluid Worlds”

The 29th of October 2025 I had the pleasure to present the Flood Necklace project along with other dataphysicalization projects during an online conference organized by the Living Maps Network. I am sharing on this page the full presentation I gave that day. It was based on the “Z axis problem” and how data-sculpture can…
-
Clay Tokens, Dataphysicalization, and How Writing Came About 9000 years ago

I discovered the history of Mesopotamian Clay Tokens through Denise Schmandt-Besserat’s books. Denise Schmandt-Besserat is a French-American archeologist, famous for her work on the origins of writing through the study of Mesopotamian clay token. In her books, “Before Writing I & II” and “How Writing Came About”, Denise Schmandt-Besserat shows how accounting artifacts such as…
-
Erik Demaine’s Curved-Crease Sculptures, or the Art of Computational Origami

When I stumbled upon Erik Demaine’s work, its unique nature made me wonder whether I should document it in a data sculpture themed notebook. Demaine’s folded art pieces are not – per say – data-sculptures (while some are, in his “Curved Crease” series) – they don’t represent or embed data in their shape – but…
-
Putting history on the [counter]map: sculpting the Loire average monthly flow data from 1964 to 2022
![Putting history on the [counter]map: sculpting the Loire average monthly flow data from 1964 to 2022](https://datartefacts.hypotheses.org/files/2023/04/waterheights3-1200x800.jpg)
From the previous datasculpture “The Flood Necklace” as a first counter-map proposition, and after discussing with geologist and stratigraphist Zoltan Sylvester about his 3D river meandering model through time, emerged the question of how to give, in one glance, a physical and visual representation of the complete history of one’s river. Extending the reflection started…
-
Not “from above”, not from “far away”: data sculptures as counter-cartographies

Geographical knowledge as power, and the domination of the “from above” and “far away” views of the land Landscapes evolve at different time scales. In the context of the Anthropocene, such movement is even more dramatic, fast and deployed on big scales than ever before. Mankind has altered landscapes for millenniums, from cutting down forests…
-
Critical Shapes : anthropocene metrics as ceramic shapes

I had the idea of making datartefacts and data sculpture for several years before having the chance to make a professional turn and join a design & art school. During breaks or in between data-articles I had to write or review in the context of my job as a data editor, I used to draw…
-
“Making With Data”: Interview with co-author, associate professor of design & information, Samuel Huron

Dr. Samuel Huron is an information designer and associate professor in the Design of information technologies inside the Social and Economic Science department of Télécom Paris at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris and part of the CNRS Institut Interdisciplinaire de l’Innovation. He leads the design studio telecom Paris tech at Telecom Paris and he is…
-
Photography as Scientific Data: the ASTER project, by Photographer Grégoire Eloy & Glaciologist Etienne Berthier

Grégoire Eloy is a french documentary photographer based in Paris and a member of the Tendance Floue agency. Born in 1971 in Cannes, he received the Niépce Gens d’Images price in 2021. Grégoire spent many years in the South Caucase photographing the populations displaced by the wars (‘Les oubliés du pipeline’ – The Forgotten Of…
-
Interview with Matthew Stewart, Model maker and Data-sculpture designer

Matthew Stewart graduated with a Modelmaking degree from Arts University Bournemouth in 2020. With a passion for sculpting data, Matthew is using his impressive range of technical skills to make artifacts shaped by datasets, while also developing a critical reflection about data physical representations as tools to convey meaning and knowledge to an audience. Could…
-
Interview with geology researcher Zoltán Sylvester: understanding river meandering through time

Zoltán Sylvester is a research scientist in the field of geology and a world-known sedimentologist, stratigrapher, and modeler. He is a co-PI of the Quantitative Clastics Laboratory (QCL) at the University of Texas at Austin in the United States. His work requires lots of data collection and processing, as well as the use of mathematical…
-
The making of the Loire river “Flood Necklace” data-object

At the jonction of geography and design research, the Datartefact project is a proposition to revisit the knowledge and data we have (but usually don’t know about) on the landscapes evolution and local territories history. First attempt in that category of local geohistory datartefacts, somewhere between memorial objects and media objects, the “Flood Necklaces” embeds,…
-
Interview with Eimear Tynan : Landscape design, the Arctic coast, Time and Research through design

By Anne-Laure Fréant, geographer & political art Master graduate & design student-researcher within the Craft, Objects and Computation research program, ESAD Orleans, France. June 2022 Eimear Tynan is a PhD fellow at The Oslo School of Architecture and Design in Norway (AHO). Originally from Ireland, Eimear holds two Masters of Landscape Architecture from University…
-
Discussion avec Pauline Gourlet : dataphysicalisation et design des données

Cet article fait la synthèse d’une discussion avec la designeuse et chercheuse Pauline Gourlet, en date du 1er Mars 2022, à distance. L’échange est retranscrit par Anne-Laure Fréant, géographe et chercheuse en design au sein du programme de recherche Object, Craft and Computation de l’ESAD Orléans, dans le cadre de sa recherche de troisième cycle…