Gastronomification and other multi-sensory data experiences
Other Project
Thomas Levine
Exploration of complex datasets is hard. We feel that data visualization is not powerful enough to for us to understand open data, so we have been exploring the representation of data in other senses. For the National Day of Civic Hacking, we created an R package called "gastronomify" that produces different recipes based on a dataset and then hires a TaskRabbit to prepare the food for you.
Brian Abelson [email protected] Jake Bialer [email protected] Burton DeWilde [email protected] Michael Keller [email protected] Cezary Podkul [email protected]
OTHER - Define Below
Governments have recently made great strides towards opening raw datasets online, but much still needs to be done to make them accessible and comprehensible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CiDW7NVa8o
https://raw.github.com/csv/events/master/data-guacamole.jpg
https://github.com/csv/gastronomify
Traditionally, people have produced visualizations in order to make sense of data, but we feel that we are reaching the limits of this approach. Open data efforts have led to the release diverse, rich and varied open datasets. Human vision simply does not have enough bandwidth to consume such complex data, so we experimented with the use of other senses to experience data.
At the Bicoastal Datafest, we produced the FMS Symphony, a music video about the relationships between federal spending, the federal interest rate, the debt ceiling and the financial crisis over the past few years. A couple months later, we released an R library for data sonification called "ddr".
We've continued to explore the potential of non-visual senses, and we think that music videos are just the beginning. Music videos convey only two senses. In order to increase our data bandwidth, we need to use all five senses, and we think that that is best accomplished through food.
For the National Day of Civic Hacking, we made an R library called "gastronomify" that allows data to be converted into food. It modifies a base recipe based on the data passed to it, and then it automatically hires someone to prepare the recipe with TaskRabbit. We used the library to prepare a gastronomification of New York City math test scores.
Gastronomification facilitates an ambient, passive approach to data analysis, allowing people to experience richer datasets without specialized knowledge.
We are continuing our research into data gastronomification, and we are preparing more music videos for a CSV Soundsystem US tour.
Our current data gastronomification implementation is quite naive; we are working with a chef to explore different paradigms of expressing data in food. We aim for an approach that allows us to independently vary the texture, taste, visual appearance and smell of food, allowing us to employ all five senses for conveying data.
We have been lining up performance venues and preparing a full set of music videos. We recently produced the Ridership Rachenitsa, a music video about transit ridership over the past few years in Chicago and New York. We are currently working on the a data-driven music video about the BitCoin economy, a data-driven music video about the daily activities of New Yorkers.
We eventually plan on making the processes of data sonification and gastronomification more accessible to laypeople, but we feel that we first need to explore different approaches to multi-sensory data experiences.
The gastronomify library makes it easy for a data scientist to prepare a data gastronomification that can be understood by non-data-scientists. We intend that gastronomification will benefit everyone, but we see particular groups that it will help most.
People who are blind: Data visualizations are less helpful for people who cannot see. We currently lack a strategy for conveying complex information to people who are blind. Representing data with other senses can provide such a strategy.
Young people: Data is trendy these days. Data scientists are sexy, Nate Silver is common dinnertable conversation. The White House used data to appeal to young people. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwuEnyV1Cb0
People who monitor daily data feeds: The gastronomify library can be used immediately to assist in the monitoring of daily data feeds. A data-driven meal can be produced every day to represent the status of a system. This can help investment bankers in monitoring the stock market, computer system administrators in monitoring servers and journalists in monitoring diverse content feeds.
Data gastronomification and data music videos are part of the larger theme of conveying complex quantitative information to the general public in order to engage them in important issues. In order to make the best use of open data, we need to make it comprehensible to everyone.
How Does This Project or Story Show the Value of Collaboration Between Communities and/or Corporations, and/or Governments?
We are a team of data scientists and data journalists. Together, we are able to discover important datasets, conduct advanced analyses and frame them in a way that the public can understand.
http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130429/greenpoint/data-driven-band-csv-soundsystem-makes-music-from-spreadsheets http://livestream.com/knerd/video?clipId=pla_a5d59285-9399-47dc-aaef-2b9a77142d5e https://github.com/csv/ddr http://csvsoundsystem.com http://fms.csvsoundsystem.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnoBL0tvpc
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