Meet me on the Dance Floor | a Data Art Experience
This playful, immersive work might best be described as data art karaoke. I invited people to pair up, pick a song, and share a few details about their relationship to one another. In turn, couples positioned themselves on either side of a vertical plexiglass panel. Slathered in black tempera paint, the plexi became a wall between them. Armed with a single q-tip, neither could see the other.
I instructed participants to draw one continuous line for the duration of their song. Etching away the tempera revealed more and more of their partner on the other side of the glass. Some couples began to synchronize their movements the more they could see of one another. Others focussed on etching away where they could best see the other's face. Still others drew shapes as messages to their partner.
Photographs of these temporary artworks capture the physical interaction between each pair. I use these pictures to create unique digital data artworks. In these, I combine the intersections of their lines with data about their relationship. The final works are printed as digital art posters.
