Beyond Data Lab started as a collaboration between Baltan Laboratories and Kitchen Budapest. We brought our different working methodologies and networks together in a series of two workshops in 2011 in which Dutch and Hungarian artists and designers explored new ways of embodying digital data. The first workshop took place at Kitchen Budapest from 27 September to 1 October. The best concepts from this workshop week were selected to be developed further into physical interfaces and experiences presented in the form of an open lab during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven from 22-30 October. Documentation of these workshops can be found here: http://beyondata.kibu.hu
Beyond Data Lab at Lift12 aims to find new ways of understanding data. We want to go beyond visualization by creating tangible interfaces through which people can get in touch with data. We emphasise the existence and importance of such terms as data physicalisation, data embodiment and datacrafting. Our exploration specifically focuses on different data sources as material to design, transform and learn from. With our workshop at Lift12 we would like to extend our interest and further explore this theme together with the conference participants. We are eager to share our methodology in a clearly different context, confront the above mentioned terms with new territories and learn what people (participants) think about them. We expect new directions to unfold through possible actions, concepts, and rapid prototyping in the framework of the workshop.
We will apply an adjusted, concentrated version of the Beyond Data Lab process that will reflect a number of themes touched upon at Lift12. Physical artifacts from the previous workshops will act as triggers for discussion and further development.
