Christian Stolte

On Emotional Data

What comes to mind when you think about data visualization and emotion?

Giorgia Lupi, obviously. The data is, really, about being human. That’s what she gets right. You look at her work and you don’t think “oh, interesting chart.” You think about the people in it.Giorgia Lupi’s data humanism manifesto.

Does the subject of the data change how you think about presenting it?

Yeah, of course. What is the data about? That influences the mode of communication too. You wouldn’t tell a joke at a funeral. Same thing.

If someone hands you data about refugees, and you put it in the same template you used for quarterly sales, something went wrong. The form has to respect what it’s carrying.

DNA Portraits

Your DNA Portraits work, that’s more of an artistic interpretation of data. Was the goal to communicate information or something else?

It wasn’t really about answering a question. It was for getting people interested in DNA. Getting them curious about it. What does mine look like? What makes me different?⊕The DNA Portraits series turns individual genetic sequences into visual compositions.

So more like an invitation than an explanation.

Exactly. And the thing is, the work ended up on a disc sent to the moon. I didn’t plan for that. You never know where these explorations lead. That’s kind of the point.

Making It Relatable

When does dataviz become meaningful to you?

When you can connect to the contents. If the story is somehow relatable. That’s really it.

I’ve seen amazing technical work that I forget about immediately. And then some simple thing where the data is about something I recognize from my own life, and it stays with me. The technique doesn’t matter as much as people think it does.

So the craft matters less than people think?

Both matter, but the connection comes first. Craft without connection is just showing off.