Representation, 2022
p5.js, data, custom software
Click to load imageA group of orange circles overlapping each other. Some of them are slightly transparent. They are on a noisy grey background.
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Click to load imageSix overlapping small azure and blue circles on a noisy grey background. They are scattered evenly on the x-axis.
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Click to load imageSix large purple circles overlapping each other slightly. They are scattered on both the x- and y-axis across a noisy grey background.
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Click to load imageSix large blue circles overlapping each other a lot. They are scattered evenly on the x-axis on a noisy grey background.
To reduce website CO2e emissions, project images need to be manually loaded.
Click to load imageSix large green circles overlapping each other somewhat. One of the circles has a purple tinge. They are scattered on both the x- and y-axis across a noisy grey background.
To reduce website CO2e emissions, project images need to be manually loaded.
Click to load imageThree large purple circles overlapping each other a lot. One of the circles has an orange tinge. They are scattered evenly on the x-axis.
To reduce website CO2e emissions, project images need to be manually loaded.
About
Representation is a generative art piece and data visualization about gender representation in global politics.
Representation unfolds its data visualization across all the variations minted on fxhash. Yet at the same time, each singular piece becomes a microcosm of the larger data set.
Each iteration gets assigned 6 countries from different regions. 1 country from the Pacific, 1 from Europe, 1 from Asia, 1 from the Americas, 1 from Sub-saharan Africa and 1 from the Middle East and North Africa.
Each circle in an edition represents the gender split of the parliament(s) in one of the 6 countries by using a color gradient. The legend in the bottom right can be used to decipher which color means what.
Looking through all the editions of Representation, it becomes very clear that parliaments across the world are far from reaching gender equality. Very few countries show visible gradients, and instead appear as almost solid colors.
Aesthetically, Representation melds together analog and digital techniques to emphasize the anachronistic reality of gender equality in parliaments. Even though it's been more than a hundred years since the women's suffrage movement, democratic representatives across the world tend not to be women.
A year after Representation was released, I created a data visualization website called Circles that allows users to create their own data visualizations using the aesthetics of Representation, as well as my other data art works Habitats and Barriers.
The data in Representation comes from IPU.