Embodied Situatedness: A Dynamic Framework for Critical Reflection in Data Physicalization
Abstract
Physicalization makes data tangible. However, understanding and engagement are not sufficient in themselves to ensure that people question the social and political contexts in which data is produced. This paper addresses the question of whether and how embodiment and situatedness can be dynamically employed to move people beyond understanding data to reflection on it. Based on an analysis of seven exemplary projects, this research explores how the dimensions of embodied interaction, material response, context, and culture affect people's understanding of data. The analysis demonstrates that embodiment allows for contestation of data by making it tactile and kinetic, while situatedness adds moral and political weight to data by grounding it in the places where the consequences of the data arise. Together, the dimensions produce a friction between sensual experience and meaning, enabling questioning of authority, accountability, and power relations rather than passive consumption of data. Based on these results, the paper develops a framework with three design guidelines for data physicalizations: juxtaposition of comfort with criticism, placement of physicalizations in contentious contexts, and use of expressive forms to make processes invisible in the data visible.
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