Assignment 2: Data Sculpture

OBJECT

The object I have chosen for this assignment is 'redheads' matches. The reason I chose this object was due to it being aesthetically pleasing and versatile, thus making it easier for me to use in my sculpture.

DATA TRENDS

1. 10 trees cut down every hour to make splints (match sticks); I have changed this figure to 240 trees per day to exaggerate the effect it has on the viewer (information found at the Redheads website)

2. 123 fire-related deaths in 1998 (this was the most recent record at the Australian Bureau of Statistics)

3. Every match burns down to a different length. I burnt a whole box of matches (in the same environmental conditions) and measured how low each match burnt. The trend I found in this characteristic was that it was rare for a match to burn for very long. If it was not used for lighting anything the flame would go out quite quickly. Although, there was one match in the whole box which burnt to the bottom (or until I couldn't hold it any more).

4. The most recent logo has been around for 3 decades (information from the Redheads website). Compared to the previous logos, which all changed due to the changing hairstyle fashions of the day, this current logo has been around for the longest by far. The reason for this is that they haven't incorporated a particular hairstyle to the woman, therefore, it can never get old.

5. There are 7 safety tests that redheads matches undertake before they are considered safe to sell (information found at the Redheads website):
- tray retention test
- drop ignition test
- splint strength test
- match burning properties
- afterglow
- heat-induced ignition test
- friction resistance test

During the design process I have changed a couple of my characteristics due to difficulties in constructing my sculpture. My previous data trends included; the shape each match formed when burnt, the number of matchsticks made from one tree (one million), and the number of different logos 'redheads' has had over the years (four). The reason why I changed these was because I wanted to create one sculpture that combined all of the characteristics, not five separate sculptures all placed next to each other. With my new data trends I could visualise all of these in the one sculpture quite easily, they all flow together well.

DESIGN PROCESS

My initial idea was to create a sculpture of a large match, made of matches and matchboxes. Something like this:

Although after some feedback this idea was seen as too literal and I needed something more abstract to represent my data. Therefore I began thinking about other visualisations where I could combine all of my characteristics into the one sculpture, where everything flowed together nicely.

After some experimenting I decided that the most striking visual effect I could create with matches was repetition.

To represent the fire-related deaths I placed 123 dots of ash in neat rows on a piece of white paper. I then stuck 240 matches vertically on the paper as well.

Therefore, the number of matchsticks altogether represented the number of trees killed per day to make matches, and the number of ash spots represented the human fire-related deaths. To exaggerate this I decided to burn the 123 matches that represented human deaths, I feel that combining the human deaths in a year and tree 'deaths' per day together in the one visualisation makes for a different interpretation of the data. It will get people comparing the two 'deaths' and realising just how many trees are killed to make matches.

After looking at what I had created, I decided that I would rather the matches be stuck on black paper instead of white.

This reminded me of a 'field' of matches, so then I started experimenting with ways of adding my other characteristics to the sculpture. Using the logo cut out from 30 matchboxes I decided that I would make a type of flower visualisation, each flower made from 10 logos. This represents the 3 decades that the logo has been around for.

The stems of the flowers are made from the matchboxes' strike surface (7 in total), and these 7 strike surfaces represent the 7 safety tests that Redheads matches have to undergo before being sold to the public.

These 'flowers' are then placed in the 'field' of matches.

My final characteristic to be represented in the sculpture is the length each match burns to. I decided to use only 11 burnt match lengths to represent the majority of scope in which the matches burnt to. I used black paint to mark this point on 11 matches in the 'field'. This visualisation looks like a kind of bar graph.

I wrote labels with a white pen due to the fact that it looks aesthetically pleasing.

Materials I used include: matches (burnt, not burnt), matchboxes, super glue, black paint, paper, cardboard, black and white pens.

DESIGN RATIONALE

The rationale behind my final sculpture is gathered from the metaphor of an organic field. This 'field' represents the death of life; human and trees. The 'flowers', that represent the redheads logo and therefore the 'face' of this match empire, stand tall over the 'field' of 'dead' matches. Whilst the stems holding up the 'flowers' represent the safety of the matches. The whole sculpture represents an irony, a vicious cycle, where the deaths of trees create the matches, that create fire, that cause the death of humans.

I represented the human death and tree death on the same level, and relatively in the same way, causing them to seem equal in seriousness. This causes us to start thinking about the importance of life, do the deaths of 240 trees a day compare at all to the 123 human deaths a year? Does the impact of their loss affect things to the same extreme? And because we are human, can we even rationalise this thought?

FINAL DATA SCULPTURE

Here is my final sculpture; I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. I feel I have successfully combined all 5 characteristics into one attractive sculpture.

Flickr Set