tanagble research artefacts

Through conversations with academics in my linked research, physical artefacts in research are things that are personal to ourselves that serve as reminders of ideas to pursue, a representation of our current train of thoughts, our ambitions for the future, our achievements of the past amongst many more. How can this narrative seen in these physical artefacts be told of digital artefacts (artefacts being images, e‐books, pdf’s, music) through the creation of a generative physical artefact?

Many people have tried to explore the notion of taking data and representing it through visualisation. Through his work, Dragulecu (iv.) asks questions about how your own personal documents can be translated into “…inhabitable objects…” and even “..transformed into a small Cubist city.” Dragulecu uses his project Spam Plants (iv.) to demonstrate this, where data inputs were translated into variables that drive the creation of petals. The limits of this project however and still the confinements of a screen, relying on visualisation to demonstrate their meaning. A V Moere and S Patel (ii.) propose the concept of a data structure that is a mapping of data in a physical form. However, I feel that their definition of a data sculpture is limited to the context that they experimented in. Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts differs from that which A V Moere and S Patel (ii) propose through the metaphorical representation of the data structure. Whereas the Moere and Patel’s data structures tried to open the black box, my Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts embrace the secrecy of the data structure they create. The secrecy of a researchers artefact can sometimes be what creates its beauty in the researchers eyes. Participant A (iii.) talks about how an attractive feature of his book case is that only he understands the indexical relationship of his books. I want to capture this emotion in my artefact and the poetic nature of this. The narrative of this connection can be portrayed through the personal selection of data sets and the element of customisation within the artefact. The artefact is the researchers own, they created it and it is personally important to them.

To create this secrecy outlined above, personal ownership needs to be present in the mapping of data in three dimensional form so an understanding of the difference between data and information is key:

“…data is the raw material of, its substrate; information is the meaning derived from data in a particular context.”

For Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts to create connections, they need to be able to have a meaning derived from them by the researcher. Can the researcher create an emotional connection with his digital artefacts? Can they express hierarchy of attachment towards digital files in a certain way? In the context of Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts meta data can secretly store information about our associations with information and a system could be used to create a hierarchy of importance and attachment.

Tailored Tangible Research Artefacts are interested in the combination data types that serve an indexical link to the researcher. This could be text, photos or a combination of the two and customisation of this is vital is the researcher is to form an attachment and sense of belonging with the artefact. Looking at the notion of data from empirical science, “Only (data) when organised and contextualised by an observer does this data yield information, a message or meaning”