Entangling the Roles of Maker and Interpreter in Interpersonal Data Narratives

Abstract

To explore how materials, data, and humans collaborate to produce physical data representations, we created a series of artefacts from personal data we collected (about commuting, forgetting, and busy-ness) in different media---yarn and sound. We exchanged these artefacts without providing guidelines for how to interpret them in order to study where the boundary between maker and interpreter emerges. Through creating hand-crafted physicalizations and sonifications, we present three themes on making personal data narratives: matching data to the materials (and vice versa), accepting the materials' will to co-author, and negotiating between the experience of the data and data of the experience. In exchanging the artefacts, we explored the role of the interpreter as a re-maker and how multiple narratives can productively co-exist. We conclude with a discussion about how reimagining the roles of maker and interpreter might lead to new interactions with personal data narratives.