CAREER: Physicalizing Small Data: A First-Person Approach to Examining IoT Data

通过与驻地艺术家合作，该项目将围绕家庭背景下数据的物理表示产生新颖的工具和方法。家庭物联网（IoT）设备，如智能家居摄像头、智能扬声器、运动传感器、智能手表等，是一个快速增长的全球市场，它不仅代表了收集人们数据的最重要的新方式之一，而且还发生在一个特别私人的空间——家里。正如最近的公开辩论所阐明的那样，人们能够访问、评估和控制自己的数据是至关重要的，这样才能更好地了解自己和别人可以了解他们的哪些信息，并管理允许收集这些数据可能带来的隐私和监控风险。为了帮助人们控制自己的数据，项目团队将汇集技术专家和艺术家，为个人创造新的方式，让他们通过观察他们和他们的家的物联网系统来体验他们创建的数据。这种“小数据”方法旨在将个人机构和控制集中在数据周围，帮助人们更加了解和参与数据经济，同时推进数据可视化和意义构建方面的知识。该项目由一系列第一人称研究合作艺术家驻地组成，发展并推广定制的数据物理表征（“物理化”）。以第一人称的方式开始是至关重要的，因为开发有意义的物理化需要对环境和参与数据收集的人都有深入的了解，例如，家庭环境，正在使用的特定技术，居民当前对数据的理解等等。因此，每次驻留都将根据驻地艺术家的背景发展一系列物化原型。然后，项目团队将对原型和用于创建它们的方法进行迭代，以创建面向公众的活动和工具，更广泛的人可以对其进行实验，并根据自己的家庭、技术和理解进行定制。总之，这项工作将(1)开发新的工具和方法来在背景下物质化物联网数据，(2)增加第一人称方法在记录、分析和传播发现方面的严格性，(3)检查技术设计和艺术之间合作的创造性可能性，这些可能性将超越数据物质化的具体问题，(4)推进对小型数据研究感兴趣的其他研究人员可用的实践和工具。技术设计师和艺术家的合作也有可能邀请和参与那些通常在计算机领域代表性不足的社区，例如女性和艺术和人文学科的学生。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

By working with artists in residence, this project will generate novel tools and methods around physical representations of data in the context of the home. Home Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as smart home cameras, smart speakers, motion sensors, smart watches and more are a fast-growing global market that not only represents one of the most important new ways of collecting data about people, but also takes place in a particularly private space, the home. As articulated in recent public debates, it is crucial that people be able to access, assess, and control their own data in order to better understand both themselves and what others can learn about them, as well as to manage possible privacy and surveillance risks of allowing these data to be collected. To help people control their own data, the project team will bring together technologists and artists to create new ways for individuals to experience the data they create through IoT systems that observe them and their homes. This ‘small data’ approach is designed to center individual agency and control around data, helping people be more aware and engaged participants in the data economy while advancing knowledge around visualization and sense-making of data.The project is structured as a series of first-person research collaborative artist residencies that develop and then generalize bespoke physical representations (“physicalizations”) of data. Starting with a first-person approach is crucial because developing meaningful physicalizations require a close understanding of both the context and the people involved in the data collection, such as, the circumstances of the home, the particular technologies in play, the residents’ current understanding of data, and so on. Thus, each residency will start by developing a series of physicalization prototypes tuned to the resident artist’s context. Then, the project team will iterate on both the prototypes and the methods used in creating them to create public-facing activities and tools that a wider range of people can experiment with and customize to their own homes, technologies, and understandings. Together, the work will (1) develop new tools and methods for physicalizing IoT data in context, (2) increase rigor in first-person methods with regards to documenting, analyzing and disseminating findings, (3) examine the creative possibilities of collaborations between technology design and the arts that will generalize beyond the specific problem of data physicalization, and (4) advance the practice and tools available for other researchers interested in small data-focused research. The collaboration of technology designers and artists also has the potential to invite and involve communities who are often underrepresented in computing, for instance women and students in the arts and humanities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.