to story overview
August 3, 2020
Graphic design brings hidden data to light
Lucas graduated from the Graphic Design course in Zwolle in 2020 with his work Not your data. In his dissertation, he explores the influence of the digital world on our perception of reality: “My particular focus is the influence of fake news and the attention economy. I also concluded that graphic designers can make a contribution in rendering visible the hidden systems that are used to influence our behaviour and hence also our view of the world."
Deliberately kept ignorant
"During my course, I was always interested in complex systems. By means of data visualisations and moving images, I want to make these systems perceptible." In his graduation project, Lucas focuses on the hidden systems behind trackers on the internet. These trackers or cookies are used to collect data on every user – for example, in order to personalise advertisements. One aspect that prompted Lucas’ project is the topicality of the subject: "The gathering and use of this data has many more consequences that are often not obvious. Internet users are recommended more and more content by algorithms based on data, but the user him or herself is deliberately kept ignorant about that. This has the effect of increasing segregation and undermining democracy. More and more, tech companies are making our choices for us."
Visualising data
With his project, Lucas wants to provide an insight into how data is gathered and used, so that people can once again become the owners of their own data, meaning they also have free choice and are able to construct their own views of the world. To this end, Lucas made the video below.
Generative art
Alongside the video, Lucas developed a tool that reveals the number of trackers on the websites you visit by means of interactive data visualisations. Lucas: "I feel it is important to find a new, appropriate way of designing in my experimental research. Which is why I wanted to create a picture of what is going on myself using simple algorithms, in order to shed light on the subject. With the help of generative art – visualisations based on code – I visualise the trackers present. These visualisations are dynamic, which means they are unique to each website."
Visualisations of trackers on a website
