«Wenn die Sicht verschwimmt» Data Sculpture

The task in the module THINK 2 was to create a data sculpture on the topic of mental health. I worked on this group project together with Jill Amber Kaser. The data we used, focusing on the subtopic alcohol consumption, came from OBSAN, the Federal Statistical Office, and the Swiss Addiction Support, referring to the year 2017. The data first had to be filtered and partly recalculated to make it suitable for presentation. During this process, data gaps became visible, which we highlighted on an accompanying poster. I then built the model in Cinema 4D, which served as our construction plan. The sculpture represents 350 spheres, each corresponding to 1,000 people with chronic alcohol consumption. The light colored spheres represent women, the darker ones men. A separated area shows people with both chronic alcohol consumption and psychological distress. The larger spheres indicate those who received treatment in 2017. The vertical axis represents age categories, while the exact placement within each zone carries no additional information. Viewed from a distance and from the side, an image becomes visible, a visual element meant to emphasize the art aspect of our study program. The data first had to be filtered and partly recalculated to make it suitable for presentation. During this process, data gaps became visible, which we highlighted on an accompanying poster. I then built the model in Cinema 4D, which served as our construction plan. The sculpture represents 350 spheres, each corresponding to 1,000 people with chronic alcohol consumption. The lighter spheres represent women, the darker ones men. A separated area shows people with both chronic alcohol consumption and psychological distress. The larger spheres indicate those who received treatment in 2017. The vertical axis represents age categories, while the exact placement within each zone carries no additional information. Viewed from a distance and from the side, an image becomes visible, a visual element meant to emphasize the art aspect of our study program.