The document discusses how data visualization and analysis can reveal beauty and insights. It provides examples of data visualizations that resemble artworks or reveal interesting patterns about topics like gender breakdown of White House visitors, laptop battery usage over time, and best-selling book covers from 2000-2011. The author argues that data has an obvious visual appeal, can make people think and reflect, and seems more objective, which is driving increased interest in analyzing and visualizing data.

1. James Davenport
There’s Beauty in Data

2. James Davenport
There’s Beauty in Data
An excuse to talk about some
fun data visualizations

3. Hi, I’m Jim

4. . com
Data, Visualization, Science, Astronomy,
Asking (sometimes stupid) questions

5. What is Data?
Datum:
A piece of information, fact, quantity, statistic,
a premise from which to drawn an assumption

6. Use of Data Graphics in
Journalism is Rising

7. Info-graphics are very popular

8. Hans Rosling
gapminder.com

10. Data Software & Skills
Becoming More Available

11. Data Scientist: Sexiest Job of the 21st Century?

12. Maybe not...
Data Scientist: Sexiest Job of the 21st Century?

13. Maybe not...
Data Scientist: Sexiest Job of the 21st Century?

14. Data impacts your
everyday life!
• newspapers, maps, phones, groceries, prices
• traffic flow, weather, airline flights
• elections, war, funding, NSA
• ABV of your drink

15. Coffee:!
Always !
within a !
2 minute!
walk!
2 min !
1 min !
5!

16. United States of Starbucks

17. Furthest Point from a Starbucks

19. Data Visualization:
Important and Cool
• Not all data science is visualization
• Enables unique insight in to data (especially big data)

20. AA BB CC DD EE FF GG HH II JJ KK LL MM NN OO
11 98 998 9 7 78 0 0 8 987676 9 7
7 6 87 87 96 85 85 86 595 96 598 75 986597
64 76 5976597658 76 97 6 6 76 9 67 5 5 9
568697568 9 9 96 85 987 59 7 6 5 9 9 5
9 6 9 9 6E+0576 875 98 7 687676 7 987
98 59 65 76 9 87 8 7 8 70 785 87 98 7
98 75 9 74 53 645226 54 8 9 0 84 52 7 5
9 0 1 6 8 9 9 675 3 68 9 0 -1 86
75 54 24 45 56 76 78 80 89 87 75 45 34 24 4
56 r 34 46 w5 56 78 990 90 78 67563 3 23
3 45 56 765 78 879 89 89 98 67 564534 23 3
Too Much to Understand!

21. 0
25
50
75
100
AA BB CC DD
Reduction/comparison enables insight

23. Data: a form of pop art

24. Let’s play a game...
Art or Data?

26. DataArt
4 hours using Eclipse,
traced with IOGraph
“14 Billions” (2010)
by Tomás Saraceno

27. Art
“14 Billions” (2010)
by Tomás Saraceno

28. Data
4 hours using Eclipse,
traced with IOGraph

30. Ellsworth KellyJaz Parkinson
Data Art

32. Ellsworth Kelly
Data Art
James Davenport (me!)

33. 2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2004
2003

34. The Average Top-10 Best-Selling Book Cover
From 2000-2011

36. The world as drawn by airports

38. Maybe this is Data & Art

39. Data
Analysis
Art Science
Beauty
Reflection
Wonder
Truth
Why I think There’s Beauty in Data

40. Female
51.8%
Male
48.2%
Gender of White House Visitors since 2009
Ugly graph
Cool Result

41. Text
“Cece You’re It” by Peter G. Adamczyk

42. “Capacity” by James Davenport (me!)

43. Days
BatteryCapacity(%)
My laptop battery, recorded every 1-minute
148,000 rows

44. Days
TimeofDay
Inspired by Stephen Wolfram
Sleep
(usually)
Dinner
Summer
Internship

45. • Data makes us think, reflect, contemplate
• Obvious visual appeal
• Data seems more honest/objective
• These effects are driving the growing
hunger for data!
Why I think There’s Beauty in Data
Data
Analysis
Art Science

46. Days
TimeofDay
@jradavenport ifweassume.com
/There’s Beauty in Data
stay nerdy!
Thanks for
listening...

47. hey girl...in case you’ve been
waiting to make this
joke all night
@jradavenport
ifweassume.com