emotive/empathic AND information/data

I believe in what Tufte says about excellence in statistical graphics. I admire the earnesty of this constitution for representing information. I took a class with Tufte a few months ago and I remember him saying that a good design is when the design disappears and the content is almost by itself. I wonder, when this is applied to something like medical avatar how it holds up. Graphical displays are: visual representations of information, data or knowledge (medical avatar fits into this).

There is a huge gap between the health data we have with how effectively we use it. There is approximately a 20 year feedback loop for the effects of blood sugar control of people with diabetes (me!). If I am fucking up now, ill feel it in 20 years (that is too far away). Because the data has been removed from our bodies and been made incompatable to our fleshy selves it is nearly unusable to me. Medical Avatar personalizes and visualizes individual and population health data. Because you see the data in you, you feel it and you understand its relation to you. It brings you closer to yourself. When data is related to us, we understand and feel it and in turn, we can act on it. With a shorter feedback loop we are able to get rewards (feeling of satisfaction and health) for our choices.

Communication between artist and viewer, the moment the viewer relates, is the gem driver of creative production. Success by me is that good artwork communicates feeling and experience. I think one of the most valuable things that the creative expression has to offer is its potential for emotive and empathic power. I think Medical Avatar does an amazing job of combining emotive/empathic with information/data (according to Tuftes constitution of excellence).

 

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