We are excited to host this year’s Data Through Design: an annual exhibition celebrating tangible and multimedia expressions of New York City’s Open Data. Join us for the opening night where you will be able to see the pieces, mingle with the artists, and enjoy free drinks.
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This year’s theme is NaN – Not a Number
In computing, NaN, standing for not a number, is a numeric data type value representing an undefined or unrepresentable value. In many ways, data is meant to represent often unrepresentable features about the spaces, places, and people around us. This presents us with a problem – how are the fundamentally unquantifiable things, the things that should otherwise return a computational error statement – the NaN – actually being assigned numerical values that affect life in the city? Our theme this year is “Not a Number” to speak to the ways in which space and place are being transformed and shaped by the numbers that are meant to represent complexity in the everyday. We ask our artists to reflect on the stories within our city’s open data that speak to the undefined or unrepresentable value of the things that the data may be hiding.
Data Through Design is part of NYC Open Data Week and is sponsored by Pratt Institute Spatial Analysis and Visualization Initiative, Enigma, Stae.co, and Carto, with support from the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics.