Service Design Masterclasses

Pau Garcia‘s research is based on the areas of new media technology and data languages.

He has been working in projects for the REcall European Conflict Archeological Landscape Reappropriation in Berlin and Norway and doing research and design projects in Spain, France, Italy and Germany. In 2013 he received the M4M European Prize that brought him to design a project for the European Design Institute developing cartographic systems and a book that ended up with an exhibition at the Center of Contemporary Art of Fabrica in Milan, opening a new approach to data visualization and info-experiences.

Nowadays he leads the design firm Domestic Data Streamers working in research, communication and design projects for cultural institutions and organizations such as the California Academy of Sciences, Google, UNICEF, Spotify or the Mobile World Congress and works as director of the Master in Data and Design at the Elisava School of Design and Engineering in Barcelona.

He believes that there is a strong need to change the way we consume and stream information today, not only in the media but also in the corporate and institutional fields. It is both an opportunity and a responsibility to build a model of change that can bring industries, culture and politics closer to an emotional and empathic approach to information and, therefore, to a more human understanding of the world.

Abstract

Day by day, the world is becoming a more complex, intricate and confusing place to live in. Numbers and data are key to understanding it; health, politics, wars, global warming, everything can be crunched into a few numbers. Still, numbers and data tend to de-attach the emotions that exist behind what they represent. We, people, don’t care about data, and if we don’t care, we don’t need to do anything to change it.

Now, imagine for a moment that every number you see from now on shows the emotions and human impact hidden behind it. Imagine they show what they truly mean not looked through a cold and precise mathematical perspective, but from a close, messy and emotional human reality. To drive change, you need stories, not just a report. Films, music, books, and any other form of art have always been some of the biggest drivers for social change; let’s use them to have a deeper and more human way to understand the world, let’s start the next data language revolution. The world cannot be understood without numbers, but it will not be understood with numbers alone.

Key takeaways:

– The importance of data languages in today’s society.
– How to build empathy into numbers.
– Interaction dialogues.
– Design with other senses others than sight.