EXPERIMENTS IN INFORMATION DESIGN — Week 8

Data Cinema

Topic

How can data be narrated, visualized, or made experienceable in the medium of film?
Data Cinema explores how information can be shown not only statically but over time, in motion, and as sequence. Data becomes an actor in an audiovisual space: rhythmic, narrative, abstract, or documentary.

Assignment

Working in teams or individually, produce a video of approximately 30 seconds in which data or information is visualized, explained, commented on, questioned, or transformed.

You are free to choose the form:

• Animated data visualization
• Documentary footage that reveals or embeds data
• Experimental, abstract, or poetic approaches
• Combination of live-action, animation, text, or sound
• Motion graphics, generative video, screen recordings, mixed media

The video should not just show something — it should make us think:
How can film tell data-driven stories differently from static images?

Technical Approaches (optional)

• After Effects, Premiere
• Scripting / generative animation (Processing, p5.js, TouchDesigner, Blender, Three.js)
• Cinematic techniques (macro, slow motion, timelapse, POV, tracking)
• Sonification or sound design as informational layer
• Typography and motion design
• Archival or found-footage material enriched with data

Guiding Questions

• What temporal qualities are inherent in your data?
• Which forms of movement convey meaning?
• How does sound influence the perception of information?
• Can information tell a story in 30 seconds?
• How does a cinematic visualization differ from a graphic one?

Output

• A 30-second video
• Short description of the idea, data source, and method
• Optional: storyboard, sketches, references