Dear Data

David Silverberg on a data-visualiza­tion memoir called Dear Data by Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec. 

It’s not necessary to be acquainted with the language of data visualization to appreciate “Dear Data.” In many ways, this data dump coincides with the everyday oversharing we are happy to indulge in via social media. Such an embrace of peep culture, to use Hal Niedzviecki’s phrase, recognizes how our voyeuristic tendencies can hold a mirror to our behavior and cause us to react to our own reflection. “Dear Data” emphasizes that idea and says: “This is every detail of your life. What are you going to do about it?”

 Its authors,  Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec, exchanged postcards documenting their daily habits. Each postcard illustrated a particular data point, such as the number of things they found beautiful. The book will be published on September 6, 2016. It sounds fascinating.