Welcome to the Season 11 Finale of the PolicyViz Podcast! I’m ready for a summer break and am super excited to close the season talking with Shirly Wu—data visualization artist, technologist, and community thought leader. We talk about Shirley’s journey from creating vibrant, web-based data visualizations to developing physical, multi-sensory data art. Shirley shares what she learned during her recent graduate studies in art and technology, her reflections on data, emotion, and the role of art, and the ideas behind her widely discussed blog series on the state of innovation in the data visualization field. We also discuss how the pandemic reshaped our community, the challenge of maintaining creative joy, and the importance of making space for both functional and expressive data storytelling. From Tokyo to San Francisco, Shirley’s work bridges client projects and immersive art experiences, all grounded in data.
Resources
Guest Bio
Shirley Wu (born in Manila, Philippines; lives and works between San Francisco and Tokyo) is a Chinese-American data visualization designer, engineer, and artist. She uses her love of art, math, and code to develop colorful, compelling, highly interactive web-based visual narratives, as well as art installations about Asian and Asian-American experiences. Raised in the Philippines, China, Japan, and the United States, Wu draws inspiration from her unique transnational upbringing to investigate identity formation in contemporary Diasporic Asian culture.
She has exhibited in solo and group shows in New York City and the United Kingdom, and was a Human-in-Residence at NYU ITP. In addition, she has worked with Google, Sony Interactive Entertainment, The Guardian, Scientific American, SFMOMA, M+ Museum of Culture, and many others to produce internal and public education data visualizations. In 2021, she co-published “Data Sketches,” an award-winning book on data visualization.
Wu holds a B.S. in Business Administration and Computer Science from UC Berkeley, and a M.P.S. from the Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.
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Transcript
00:01.15
Jon
Okay, now I’m starting by laughing. Hi, Shirley. How are you?
00:06.54
Shirley
It’s so great to see you.
00:08.03
Jon
It’s great to see you. ah We’re just going start by just, we’ll just laugh the whole time and that’ll be, that’ll be good. It’s really good to see you. It’s been ah far too long. I mean, long time ah since we last chatted.
00:18.46
Shirley
Yes. Yeah. And it’s so long that we’re actually not sure if we ever talked face to face before versus just as just versus just messages and being online.
00:25.28
Jon
In person, right. Yeah. Right. And being online. Yeah. um Well, that’s, I don’t, I don’t know. I think that that’s probably, there’s probably some sadness dipped in there somewhere, but we’re talking now. So that’s good.
00:39.42
Jon
um
00:40.00
Shirley
Yes.
00:40.54
Jon
We’ve got a lot to talk about. You’ve been doing some very cool stuff over the last, just following you, watching um the stuff that you’ve been doing. And then um last few weeks, I guess, or so you’ve written this like series of blog posts and sort of,
00:55.66
Jon
I think sort of kicked off something that’s been lacking in the field for a while, which is like the community, like having a big discussion, which has been like super fine Cause I kind of missed that of like everybody weighing in.
01:04.16
Shirley
Yeah.
01:05.89
Jon
So that’s been fun. So we can talk about that. um So why don’t we talk about like, i don’t know where you want to pick up from, but like, yeah. Like, where are you? What are you up to? have you been doing last like couple years?
01:19.79
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
01:20.04
Shirley
Yeah. um Well, first, thank you so much for inviting me on. Thank you so much for one reading the ah blog post, then responding to them and then inviting me on so that we can have a discussion.
01:31.98
Jon
Yeah.
01:32.04
Shirley
um I guess. ah Hello, my name is Shirley. am a i and i I guess I started out um making i started out as a software engineer making data visualizations, um got really, really into making very big, elaborate, um you know, colorful, joyful data visualizations. I think I spent a good like four or five years of my career doing that.
01:59.20
Shirley
um And then um ah the last couple years, i guess I got really burnt out, like many people during the pandemic, um wanted to do something different.
02:06.55
Jon
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
02:08.49
Shirley
um and went back to grad school. So I went back to a program for an art and technology, mainly because um after spending a decade making data visualizations for the web, for digital, for the screen, I got really um interested in what it would look like to take these data stories and bring them out of the screen and into the physical world.
02:21.97
Jon
here
02:31.89
Shirley
And I got really fascinated about like, what does it mean if we can kind of, you know, per proceed and kind of experience the data and the stories with not just our eyes and maybe our i’m years, but ah ah what does it mean if we can also feel them or smell them?
02:47.54
Jon
Yeah.
02:51.41
Shirley
And um I’ve never gone into the taste, but I think that would, you know, also be really cool.
02:54.51
Jon
and yeah yeah
02:56.85
Shirley
um And so that’s why I went back to grad school. And so in grad school, i’m i it was a very fun time. um i learned a lot of like hardware and physical and digital fabrication.
03:09.74
Shirley
But I think what was the most interesting thing and fun about my time there um is that it was an art school. um And so it got me thinking a lot about like, what is art?
03:20.20
Shirley
What is the value of art?
03:21.01
Jon
Mm-hmm.
03:21.52
Shirley
Does it even need to have a use and a value? um and and then what does it mean to make art with data? um And so once I graduated, um i
03:31.45
Jon
here
03:34.53
Shirley
ah wrote an article for the Nightingale i’m on their emotions, um in their like emotions volume, um kind of making an argument that Physical data experiences are very, very good for the kind of data stories that we really struggle to tell via screen.
03:55.08
Shirley
And those might be the ones with like incomplete data or missing data or imperfect, messy, or even like very emotional ones. um And then um from there, i went and wrote those three blog posts you were talking about. And here we are.
04:14.53
Jon
There’s like a big gap in like all the cool stuff, like just so people know if they haven’t seen So like I would watch because when you started grad school, i don’t remember where where yeah i saw you sharing the stuff, but like you were doing stuff with like…
04:29.93
Jon
um you know, you were like coding stuff into physical things. And then like, I think there was like, um yeah, I saw a couple of your projects and there was one that was like, you had built, i don’t know, I wouldn’t, i don’t know if I’d call it a robot, but it was some sort of machine that was like doing something.
04:45.27
Jon
And I’m, and I’m watching these and I, I had a thought at one point, um whether you’re in school and there are people like,
04:48.98
Shirley
Uh huh.
04:52.72
Shirley
Uh huh.
04:54.84
Jon
shirley will ah sure like Like, because that was after data sketches came out and I kind of was like, I wonder if there are people were like, whoa, there’s like celebrity.
05:04.85
Jon
Like I would have been like, yeah, that, yeah.
05:04.93
Shirley
Not, there was, think maybe a handful of people had like worked in newsrooms or like had
05:13.54
Jon
Yeah.
05:14.63
Shirley
done like, you know, ah like had already done a lot of generative art things that kind of knew what I
05:23.25
Jon
Yeah.
05:24.17
Shirley
But they were really nice.
05:27.11
Jon
I also imagine like art school being very different than like, you know, you clearly went through like business finance, computer science, me for economics. Like I would guess that like just the atmosphere is very different and it’s not like take a test, right?
05:38.68
Shirley
it was so fun.
05:40.77
Jon
Like just unleash your creativity every day.
05:42.95
Shirley
Yes. Yes. So when I graduated my undergrad, I was so burnt out that like I was like, I will never go back to school ever again. I refuse to take another test, put a test in front of me and I am triggered.
05:51.86
Jon
Yeah. yeah
05:55.38
Shirley
um And um so I should also say that the program I went to, it’s called ITP um and it’s at New York University.
05:55.62
Jon
Right. Right.
06:03.55
Shirley
um It’s not it’s not I wouldn’t say it’s art school. It’s like a weird like I think. OK. I don’t know if everybody that went ti to ITP would agree with me when I say this, but to me it feels like if um a bunch of people from like hacker and makerspaces went and made art school, it’s like got elements of art school, but like it’s more also tech and design.
06:25.41
Jon
Yeah.
06:25.43
Shirley
um But the the best part, what I loved about it was that i’m ah it was one, no grades. um and so
06:33.37
Jon
Yeah.
06:33.80
Shirley
And so I could go in and just learn for the pure love of learning.
06:38.48
Jon
Love learning.
06:39.23
Shirley
And then two, no tests.
06:39.43
Jon
Right.
06:41.65
Shirley
It was all project space. Like it was all final projects.
06:43.74
Jon
Right.
06:45.80
Shirley
And um so it was very practical and hands on. um And that’s what I loved about it.
06:51.72
Jon
Yeah.
06:51.67
Shirley
i’m ah And that’s the only reason why I went back because ah no tests and no grades.
06:59.49
Jon
Sounds like the dream. Just learn for the sake of learning.
07:00.87
Shirley
yeah. yeah
07:02.44
Jon
And that’s amazing. Okay. So now, and I, and I of course want to talk about the, the, the blog posts and innovation and and where their field is and where it’s going all that, but I did want to ask. So now.
07:15.35
Jon
it sounds like you’re sort of combining these two skills that you have, like sometimes, or maybe both times you’re like building stuff, you’re doing some exhibitions, you have a couple of things coming up that we want to talk about.
07:21.03
Shirley
Mm-hmm.
07:27.25
Jon
And then you’re also doing like computer client, like sort of like data sketches, Shirley Wu like work. So is that, so if you like found the middle ground that you like your happy space now?
07:40.81
Shirley
Oh, completely not yet. I’m, um I’m a I’m like a frazzled chicken running around Tokyo right now. And what happened was the year that like half a year within the first half year after I graduated grad school, and I had like a mini existential crisis of like, what am going to do? Am i like an artist now? Am i what am I um Am I doing client work again?
08:08.45
Shirley
um and then kind of the balance I figured out was like, i um I went back to grad school because I wanted to do something different. And then because I got to have that break, I i realized I kind of really missed, um you know, data viz, our community, client work.
08:26.52
Shirley
um
08:27.12
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
08:27.40
Shirley
And so i decided like, what if I can do half and half? Like what if I can do client work and stay still stay like, ah little bit like one foot in that world. Because I think we still have a very, we still have very exciting things going on.
08:41.76
Jon
yeah
08:41.66
Shirley
um And then, but also, um I’m so fascinated by kind of the art that I’ve been making and what I’m exploring with that.
08:53.68
Shirley
um And so then it became like, well, how do I facilitate this new art thing? um And then I realized that where I’m most artistically inspired is in Japan and in East Asia. And so um last year i made a company here in Tokyo and now I live half the year in Tokyo and half the year in San Francisco.
09:14.58
Shirley
um And when I’m in Tokyo, I do art. When I’m in San Francisco, um i do client work. um But it turns out um one plus one is not two.
09:26.17
Shirley
It’s like 500. And I’m still trying to figure out like how to make both work at the same time with me, just one person.
09:29.21
Jon
ah Yeah. Yeah. but Yeah. I know that. I know that feeling. Yeah. Like a million things. Yeah. But, um but that is, but that is really exciting. And I can, and I could see how,
09:44.84
Jon
they will, kind of the two sides as it were, will sort of inform each other as you move on.
09:50.58
Shirley
I hope so.
09:51.81
Jon
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:52.90
Shirley
one day. hope so.
09:54.15
Jon
One day, one day, that’s the dream.
09:54.35
Shirley
Thank you.
09:55.59
Jon
That’s the dream. um Okay, so so so let’s let’s turn to these blog posts, because that’s why we sort of like started chatting. um So, and lots of people have been talking about this now that you sort of started this, like, I would say like a bigger think series, right? So these are these are not sort of your like, you know, 500 word blog posts. These are like big think with like,
10:17.31
Jon
especially the second one, like a lot of research like went in behind that. Cause you talk to a lot of people. um And so I guess like ah just the, just like the the part, I think just to pull out like, and for folks who haven’t read them, they obviously should,
10:30.95
Jon
um maybe read them before you listen to the rest of this podcast. I’m not sure.
10:35.67
Shirley
Thank you.
10:36.17
Jon
We’re going to find out.
10:37.37
Shirley
We’ll see. We’ll see how, yeah, we’ll see.
10:38.30
Jon
We’ll see.
10:38.73
Shirley
We’ll see how the conversation goes.
10:39.12
Jon
We’ll see. We’ll do this conversation. And then when I record the intro, I’ll let folks know whether you should be reading them or not. Okay. um
10:46.20
Shirley
Sounds great.
10:47.10
Jon
So, so hold on. Okay. So, um, OK, so in the second post, you this is the this is the key thing I just wanted to get us started, was that you wrote, quote, the craft of of telling data informed stories on the web has plateaued.
11:01.02
Jon
And then you sort of went into kind of a love hate relationship with scrollytelling and then um and then sort of you know talk to, you know, Georgia, Lupi and Moritz Stefano and a whole bunch of other people um about sort of what they see and what’s going on.
11:01.46
Shirley
Mm-hmm.
11:16.82
Jon
So um So i don’t know There’s a lot to unpack. And maybe we just start with like your main thoughts and then you and I can fight it out for a little bit. And like we can, we’ll solve, solve all the problems.
11:26.60
Shirley
Yeah.
11:29.06
Jon
Like solve all of it.
11:29.52
Shirley
We’ll solve all of it. um Yeah.
11:31.05
Jon
Yeah.
11:31.69
Shirley
Yeah. i’m i That second one was really fun to read. i’m a quick shout out and credit to my editor, Emily Barone, for even suggesting that I reach out to everybody that we’d reached out to because I was just going to write about it from my perspective.
11:46.62
Shirley
And she’s like, well, this is a really… big industry observation, maybe you should reach out to and she helped me make that happen.
11:53.18
Jon
Yeah, that’s good.
11:53.60
Shirley
i’m But this is a thought that’s been brewing my head for like two or three years now. um and I think it first started happening um when was umm i was helping look through the shortlist for the 2022 information is beautiful awards. And I was like, oh, these are all really beautiful and well executed, but also nothing is standing out. I think I was helping call the shortlist down to the the top three.
12:22.78
Shirley
um And we were like trying to rank them. And it was an and I just couldn’t quite I had a little bit of a harder time that year.
12:33.94
Shirley
and because everything felt they were and the content was great like the content and the stories were great but from a visual perspective they were starting to feel very templated um and um that was when I started being like wait and then scrollytelling has been a thing for like seven years now or six five six years now um and what was because I was so excited when scrollytelling became a thing but then
12:39.45
Jon
Yeah, yeah.
12:45.79
Jon
Mm-hmm.
12:56.72
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
13:03.17
Shirley
what what has there been anything else since then that has been as industry shifting as squirrely telling?
13:08.54
Jon
yeah
13:11.39
Shirley
And I just drew a blank. And so that was kind of the starting point ah where i of where this blog post started to take shape. And then kind of the like nail, I guess, in the coffin of like why decided to write it was um one my favorite i one of my favorite repeat clients.
13:24.23
Jon
yeah
13:28.49
Shirley
i am I ended up delivering just a line chart, pie chart, and bar chart for them. um um And because they had asked to scrap the only like custom designed um visual, um which, you know, um fully agree that without the legend, it was just so confusing.
13:48.37
Shirley
And I don’t blame them for asking to cut it out.
13:50.76
Jon
Yeah.
13:51.65
Shirley
i But i just this kind of like decreased appetite I observed across like, you know, two or three years of like pre-pandemic versus post-pandemic or
14:02.57
Jon
Mm.
14:02.75
Shirley
at least like pre-grad school versus post-grad school of like people being less adventurous with the chart forms that they wanted to kind of like put in front of their audiences or stakeholders.
14:08.95
Jon
um
14:14.69
Shirley
um And then that’s why I started working on the series. And then i think what then motivated the series even more um was when um in the middle of working on, will admit, is very clickbaity. The title is very cheeky.
14:33.00
Shirley
and The part two,
14:38.73
Shirley
the part two where it says like, what killed innovation?
14:41.47
Jon
Yeah.
14:41.60
Shirley
Innovation I agree with you, John, innovation is not dead.
14:43.88
Jon
Yeah.
14:45.38
Shirley
But would you have clicked on that post if I had written something else?
14:47.67
Jon
I know. I know. And and’ ill I’ll be honest. Like, i wrote I wrote my post a response, and I was like, she’s really not arguing that innovation is dead, but she used the click-baity title. And so what do I do?
14:59.75
Jon
I just keep… I don’t know. But, like, no, it’s it’s it it’s it’s true. the the And you admitted that in the post itself. Like, it’s true.
15:07.15
Shirley
Yeah.
15:07.86
Jon
which Which I think also is, like… I think speaks a lot to where we are like in the web of like, how do you get people to read things?
15:13.61
Shirley
Yeah.
15:15.06
Jon
Like, I think that that, that says a lot.
15:16.67
Shirley
Yeah, there’s a meta discussion we can have.
15:17.47
Jon
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah It is interesting. is a little interesting how there’s like the pre post pandemic because There were so many graphs and data presented during the pandemic that I think a lot of people were saying like, oh, we’re increasing data or data visualization literacy, right?
15:39.32
Jon
We saw like Iberic choropleth maps and we saw histograms, we saw all these graph types, but it sounds like,
15:39.47
Shirley
Yes.
15:47.46
Jon
Would this be fair to say that um sort of the outcome maybe of of your argument or or I’m not sure to put this, but like, that’s not true. Like we all thought that that was happening, but then like we got on the other side of the pandemic and like nobody wanted to buy barrier cortiformis now. Like it was fine to look at infections and vaccine rates, but like not when you’re doing your day to day.
16:09.68
Shirley
Yes, um and actually i think there might be have been like a part of um a section of the the innovation article that I cut out um where it was, um because I think it was, um I think a lot of us was really quite um excited is a weird word to say about the pandemic, but there was a um a period where we were like, yeah, like you said, like we thought data literacy would increase and keep increasing.
16:34.53
Jon
Yeah.
16:37.19
Jon
Right.
16:37.40
Shirley
um And ah while I do think data literacy really increased at a massive scale, I think it only really increased for like a very certain set of charts of the line charts. And then I think people got really great at reading logarithmic sales. Thanks to John Burdard.
16:54.95
Jon
Yeah.
16:55.08
Shirley
ah but up bread up but but but heard
16:57.49
Jon
Byrne Murdoch. Yeah.
16:58.03
Shirley
John, jump they
16:58.99
Jon
John Byrne Murdoch.
17:00.19
Shirley
um john burnton i thank you i and ah But then i don’t think it ever went beyond that.
17:00.93
Jon
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
17:07.24
Shirley
And I think my hypothesis is that it’s because whereas before… um a lot of people that were into data visualizations, were we were such a niche, we were we were attracting people that were into, um you know, like spending the time and reading and and figuring out, you know, like Georgia’s like gorgeous, um you know, ah designs or like we were okay with like pouring over the keys and like spending 30 minutes on it.
17:26.04
Jon
yeah.
17:37.34
Shirley
um ah But, I think when it shifted from a niche interest to something that is like a general public, for lack of a better word, public service, um and it was being read by people whose that’s not their interest.
17:50.17
Jon
yeah
17:54.68
Shirley
They just need like a quick 30 second thing that they can understand so that they can go about the rest of their day informed on this topic that they don’t necessarily want to be involved or informed on, but is a need in their day to day.
18:00.68
Jon
Right.
18:08.13
Jon
Yeah.
18:08.12
Shirley
um And so it makes a lot of sense that like for that purpose, the quickest like bar chart, line chart, is something that they already know how to read, is what is the most effective in is um and is you know more than enough.
18:25.06
Shirley
i’m
18:25.57
Jon
Mm-hmm.
18:26.56
Shirley
And there’s a line from your blog post about like economic incentives. um And it makes a lot of sense.
18:31.36
Jon
Yeah.
18:32.95
Shirley
im I fully agree with that, that for most use cases, a the that standard set is more than good enough.
18:44.51
Jon
Right. Yeah, I so I don’t want to change the BuzzFeed clickbaity title. but i think what um’m But I think what I’m hearing from you is not so much change in innovation. Because I think the the point that I was clearly making in post is that you know there’s lots of ways to define innovation. And focused on the tools now are just one place. like It’s pretty amazing what you can do now with you know these tools that you couldn’t do five, six, seven years ago.
19:16.57
Jon
But what I think I’m hearing from you is that it’s not so much a lack of innovation. It’s almost a lack joy. almost a lack of like joy in creating visuals, right?
19:26.88
Shirley
Oh, yes.
19:28.28
Jon
Like, i mean, I guess because again, like everybody knows how to read a bar chart. So like we could get really like meta conceptual, right? So do I get joy from reading a chart that I just understand the point?
19:41.54
Jon
Like there’s joy in that, but there is joy in um in in sort of trying to understand something that may be new to me.
19:41.95
Shirley
yeah
19:52.04
Jon
And I feel like that’s what I’m hearing from you.
19:54.63
Shirley
Yes, and I think that like I’m not I’m also not trying to argue that in every, you know, reading of a chart, every single person, you know, must feel joy or that we need to design every single chart to deliver joy.
20:07.38
Shirley
And sometimes really is just that 20, 30 seconds information.
20:11.50
Jon
Yeah.
20:12.07
Shirley
But I think that there was something that um when I was working on the series of articles, um ah Amanda McCulloch and Elijah Meeks, they put out the um ah article about the fourth wave, summarizing kind of where we are in the field right now of data communication.
20:31.79
Shirley
And to me, that article im was very much an important summary of one part of our field, of the part that is like public communication, and but like public health communication, science communication, very important, i’ very important
20:39.20
Jon
Mm-hmm.
20:49.03
Shirley
things to inform potentially influence of public. um But what I wanted to make sure was that that wasn’t the only way, though that wasn’t the only summary of our field.
21:00.60
Shirley
um And so one of my friends, Eric Lin, the two of us talk a lot about our field and i I’m borrowing this analogy from him um of a film analogy. So if we if we kind of summarize, if we kind of, um you know,
21:18.49
Shirley
um ah use analogy that if data viz is a field i of like storytelling and communication, if we kind of like, you know, equate that to the film field, um then a lot of what the fourth wave is talking about, or like a lot of what you had mentioned, um to me is like the public education, the documentaries, and those are very, very important.
21:29.64
Jon
Yeah.
21:38.91
Jon
me
21:41.04
Shirley
But there is also like a lot of other like um you know comedies. There are like Marvel and there are um art house. There are like art house films that like make no sense to most people.
21:50.08
Jon
yeah
21:55.08
Shirley
none of us are like, our house should not exist or like Marvel should not exist.
22:00.67
Jon
Right.
22:00.57
Shirley
um We all just talk about how good or bad a particular film is.
22:06.72
Jon
Mm-hmm.
22:06.60
Shirley
We don’t discuss the necessity of that particular genre. And that’s what I was hoping. That’s that’s kind of what I’m hoping for going forward is like we’re like, yes, public education. Very good. Very important.
22:18.43
Shirley
And experimental art house and experimental like, you know, ah ah things that can push our field forward, also equally important.
22:27.80
Jon
Mm-hmm.
22:28.78
Shirley
And then within those genres, let’s talk about when each individual piece is good and when it’s bad. i am
22:35.61
Jon
Yeah.
22:36.13
Shirley
And I think that that’s something I wanted to get across and maybe it didn’t quite land in the series.
22:41.87
Jon
No, no, I think it did. i think, no, I, think it did land. I, and I, and I think there’s just like we’ve been talking about, like kind of pre, I might’ve even split it up into like pre pandemic,
22:55.72
Jon
pandemic and then post pandemic.
22:57.16
Shirley
yeah
22:57.82
Jon
Right. Like, um but I guess I also wonder whether there’s like, you know, Twitter era and then like the X era.
22:58.23
Shirley
Yeah. oh Yeah.
23:09.88
Jon
And I, and I do, and I haven’t, I guess I haven’t really thought this all the way through, but I do kind of feel like what happened in the data viz field on Twitter, which was so
23:10.69
Shirley
Yeah.
23:20.80
Jon
generally joyful and fun and you know had these sorts of discussions online all the time, right?
23:22.44
Shirley
Mm hmm.
23:28.59
Shirley
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
23:29.08
Jon
um But I do wonder whether we celebrated stuff that no one else saw or celebrated. And now, because we’re not all we’re not all in that same room, um that we’re not, maybe maybe we’re just not seeing them enough, or or or maybe ah creators and clients are less likely to like,
23:53.62
Jon
really push them out as like forcefully in the past. I don’t know. Cause, cause I, cause I, I can’t, I think I would just, and I, you’re not saying this, but I think I would disagree that like, there are no art house films, right?
23:58.97
Shirley
yeah
24:06.33
Jon
I think it’s just like, they’re harder to find.
24:06.74
Shirley
Yes.
24:09.47
Shirley
Yes, I think it’s they’re harder to find. And also, i think that while in our field, we are fully accepting and celebratory of our house films.
24:20.57
Shirley
I think outside of our field, most people are like, why do we need our house for data viz?
24:24.12
Jon
Yeah.
24:25.03
Shirley
Like why
24:25.59
Jon
Yeah.
24:26.20
Shirley
Why? Someone posted my and what killed innovation on a hacker news and not saying that Hacker News is a representative of the rest of the world.
24:36.09
Jon
yeah
24:37.02
Shirley
It’s a very specific subset of the but most of the comments were like, this is why do we even need innovation?
24:38.64
Jon
Right. Right.
24:43.69
Shirley
We just need like Tufti, like minimalism, just a bar chart, just a line chart, um which then, you know, really proves my point of like, I think most people outside of our field are like, we only need the public education.
24:52.12
Jon
Yeah.
24:57.73
Jon
yeah
24:57.86
Shirley
i And so um i sorry,
25:02.00
Jon
Tufti wrote all those posts, by the way. That was Tufti just writing all those. He’s just like, yeah, it’s just him.
25:07.06
Shirley
you’re right. It was actually just him in all the different accounts.
25:08.98
Jon
Yeah. It’s just him, different avatars. He just made like a million accounts. Just, yeah.
25:15.05
Shirley
um But I think you’re absolutely right in that um Twitter was our, like, we were all in the same place.
25:16.00
Jon
Yeah.
25:22.01
Shirley
And i’m But I also, I’m very sad that we don’t have that anymore because the party was very fun.
25:27.98
Jon
Yeah.
25:29.35
Shirley
and I mean, I think we had like such a beautiful niche of Twitter.
25:29.52
Jon
Yeah.
25:33.80
Shirley
um But also, i really enjoyed what Alberto said. Cairo said when I asked him about it and he kind of, um I go into more detail about it in the in the part three, which has less of a clickbaity title.
25:49.57
Shirley
um um And i called it ah Beyond the Plateau. um And he talked about how as our field has gotten bigger, maybe it’s not our one room and our one party, but maybe it’s like a lot of smaller rooms of parties and, um and then how, you know, different people have different motivations in our field and, He called himself a consolidator.
26:04.57
Jon
Yeah.
26:14.76
Shirley
um i see you also as a consolidator. I see Amanda as a consolidator of like you bring the field together. You try to bring more people into the field. um I think you’re all trying to elevate the baseline data literacy um and that there are others.
26:31.00
Shirley
i’m I consider myself an experimenter. um i really am interested in like what, what how how do we push out those boundaries and edges?
26:40.57
Jon
Yeah.
26:40.50
Shirley
um ah And that that’s great. um And hopefully we, you know, mingle once in a while across the rooms like we are doing now.
26:49.36
Jon
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
26:50.18
Shirley
um But i’m it’s perfectly valid that there’s many forms of innovation. And for people who um are um and consolidators, right now is a very innovative time.
27:04.92
Jon
Mm-hmm. Do you… Do you have thoughts on how to, i mean, we can’t bring that Twitter database era back because that has passed, but do you have thoughts on how to, i mean, ah maybe, maybe the right word is like oh increase awareness of not even the more bespoke, because I would also say like your art installations, like your art exhibits, like how do we get people more aware and not just aware, but like, you know,
27:13.17
Shirley
Mm-hmm.
27:36.00
Jon
And some of the stuff that maybe like people do that on the art side or on the installation side or on the physical side, like they could recreate it maybe a smaller scale.
27:46.92
Jon
So have you thought about like how like how do we do that? like Is there a way to do that?
27:52.45
Shirley
and jimmy mean how Do mean how do we like share what we’re doing?
27:54.16
Jon
and we Share more? share more. yeah share more do we?
27:58.56
Shirley
Share more?
28:01.57
Jon
Yeah, I don’t know, but like, how do we bring sort of a sum of that party? How do we bring some of that party back? Because I do feel like, and yeah, I mean, maybe it’s not something that can be recreated anymore.
28:15.44
Jon
And we just have to celebrate the fact that there are small parties.
28:15.89
Shirley
i
28:18.62
Shirley
Yes, and I actually also think that perhaps it really is much better now with the small parties, because I do want to also acknowledge how privileged a position that we we were in to be part of that small party.
28:31.24
Shirley
I know that there’s people that, you know, we we were in a party on Twitter that was mostly like Western, like English speaking.
28:39.96
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
28:41.04
Shirley
And and I also have heard a lot of times how like hard that is to enter if your main first language is in English or
28:47.01
Jon
yeah
28:51.21
Shirley
you know, or even just the, i one of the things I loved about the parties was how I got to meet people in person at conferences um that like I had known ah from Twitter, but that’s also inherently very exclusive.
29:04.76
Jon
yeah
29:05.04
Shirley
So I actually think that these like smaller parties are really great because I think it does end up being much more inclusive, hopefully, hopefully more inclusive.
29:15.75
Shirley
um And hopefully there’s just, you know, still that we don’t we don’t all become siloed in each of these that there’s still some amount of like cross cross pollination cross conversation across these parties that’s the first part of um what i think and the second part is also that um i don’t know if it’s a post pandemic thing um but um i’m i think less online these days and more just
29:21.13
Jon
Yeah.
29:28.22
Jon
yeah
29:43.63
Jon
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
29:45.14
Shirley
i’m local. I’ve been thinking a lot. I really enjoyed your conversation with Yanni about like i’m ah local data and um going out and talking to the community.
29:56.83
Shirley
um i think much more about like, i’m how do I, you know, engage and meet people locally and then kind of like um and then especially because You know, im art shows are inherently geographically exclusive.
30:17.71
Shirley
um it The physical installations are inherently exclusive.
30:17.92
Jon
Yeah.
30:20.50
Jon
Right.
30:22.97
Jon
Right.
30:22.87
Shirley
um But how do we consider that as a feature and not a bug? um And maybe it’s very much about engaging with the local community, inviting them in, a lot of whom are not online.
30:36.73
Shirley
um And then having conversations
30:36.92
Jon
Mm hmm.
30:39.87
Shirley
with them and hoping that they will see my work and engage with it. um And then that’s my first step, my first priority.
30:50.63
Shirley
And then it’s about how do I document it um for the more people online to see.
30:57.02
Jon
Yeah. Well, yes, I think that’s, i think that’s great. And I think they’re sort of like, can’t, and this is how I’ve sort of thought of like the physical data, this stuff, right. It’s like um Sam Huron and Wes Willett have this book, what is it called?
31:14.27
Jon
Make, making with data, right.
31:15.27
Shirley
Yes.
31:16.06
Jon
Which I love this book, but like 90% of the projects in that book are things that I could never like,
31:16.45
Shirley
Yeah.
31:23.08
Jon
bending copper tubes into like this hanging thing. like I couldn’t do that. But I could do that with straws, or I could do it with cardboard.
31:29.57
Shirley
hmm.
31:30.90
Jon
right So like are there ways to bring people into the physical space with data and then empower them to do a sort of like and know smaller, even more local version on their own?
31:44.52
Shirley
Ooh, yeah, what a fascinating idea.
31:46.37
Jon
like
31:48.12
Shirley
have not been thinking about um that as much. um I like to describe where I am currently with, um I have so much pent up feels to make my own shows with for now, that I um don’t quite yet have the capacity to think about what
32:00.38
Jon
Yeah. yeah
32:04.94
Shirley
like workshops that involve others.
32:08.35
Jon
Yeah.
32:08.27
Shirley
Hopefully I’ll get there in a few years after I get out all my feels.
32:09.33
Jon
Yeah. Right.
32:11.16
Shirley
um But what i I’ve been really loving, um i talked to Payne as part of the article Payne from Continentalist. And I loved how she described um how they no longer really call themselves like I think a data scientist
32:18.13
Jon
Mm-hmm.
32:26.05
Shirley
visualization studio but rather um like in human experiences I love that and she was telling me about a workshop where um you know nothing was like you know one-to-one data mapped but instead they invited people from the community in um and asked them to make like you know bouquets from I think ah paper flowers and they got to choose like different colors of paper flowers based on their answer of, um I think it was um how, ah how does this, or um I think it was like, how, what is ancestry to you? Or like, what is a, which flower best i’m ah ah represents ancestry for you?
33:11.80
Shirley
And then they kind of like ah made that bouquet together and they talked about it. um And i I love that. i feel like it’s um very similar in what you described about like, yeah, I can’t bend copper either.
33:26.89
Jon
if either of us, you’d be better able to do it than I would.
33:27.07
Shirley
But, it’s ah
33:30.28
Jon
So, you know.
33:31.50
Shirley
oh
33:32.23
Jon
and
33:32.37
Shirley
and but you know, assembling a bouquet, that’s something that everybody can do.
33:37.48
Jon
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
33:37.74
Shirley
And I love these things. um And this ties into a, I think, still a half formed thought that um I’ve been having about perhaps what we’re going to see in the future is less about, you know, so the you know someone that makes data visualizations or data stories or data dashboards or data art, but rather like designers that i have to be fluent in communicating with data or like artists that use data as part of their medium um and that data will become so ubiquitous that we don’t really like we don’t really make as much of a big deal about it and I think that that is how i’m I think that’s how like I feel like we’re like consolidators and and me like I feel like we’re working towards the same thing but from like opposite ends of like
34:09.52
Jon
Yeah.
34:29.69
Jon
yeah
34:30.31
Shirley
I think that for me, I’m moving, especially in my art, I’m moving further and further away from one-to-one visual channel mapping, i’m but rather use data in my art um in a way that doesn’t look like a chart or that doesn’t look like there’s data, and but it’s backed by data, and that’s the conversation starter.
34:43.01
Jon
Yeah.
34:55.25
Jon
Yeah.
34:55.19
Shirley
And I feel like the fact that it does not look like a chart, i’m is what makes it less intimidating for non-data people to come in and talk about a topic.
35:05.87
Jon
Right. Yeah, I mean, it’s the data, right, that I think… So here’s here’s the example I think, at least this is this is how I think about it.
35:18.33
Jon
if I showed any old person a box and whisker plot, right? It’s just a rectangle with some lines off the end, not a complicated form.
35:25.31
Shirley
Yeah.
35:26.23
Jon
But if I say this is a 75th percentile, this is a 25th percentile, this like most people, those concepts, not that they can’t learn them, but they’re, you know, they just don’t know those concepts.
35:37.41
Jon
But like if I showed you the same plot type and instead of the 25th and 75th, I said, this is the high temperature of the day and this is the low temperature of the day.
35:44.77
Shirley
Mm-hmm.
35:46.36
Jon
everybody would understand that. So it’s like, it’s framing, it’s not the viz necessarily.
35:48.29
Shirley
Mm-hmm.
35:52.77
Jon
It’s the data that we need to sort of figure out how to get that clear.
35:54.70
Shirley
Mm-hmm.
35:58.97
Jon
I don’t know. I mean, a lot of these are challenges that we’ve been fighting, wrestling with for a long time. um
36:03.72
Shirley
Yes, definitely.
36:04.65
Jon
And it’s just now sort of like, i don’t know, maybe we have sort of like the field sort of bifurcated out and now we’re just kind of like bringing it back together in different ways. And like, i don’t know.
36:14.87
Shirley
I think we are working towards the same thing, but just like from different approaches.
36:17.48
Jon
Yeah.
36:19.13
Shirley
And i think you’re absolutely right in that.
36:19.61
Jon
Yeah.
36:22.03
Shirley
um I think at the end of the day, we’re trying to make im ah reading and understanding data more accessible, especially, you know, we can’t deny that it’s everywhere in our lives now.
36:34.83
Shirley
So how do we make it more accessible for people that don’t want to read data?
36:35.63
Jon
yeah
36:39.32
Shirley
The people that like are like, oh, numbers.
36:39.98
Jon
Yeah.
36:42.06
Shirley
um
36:42.95
Jon
Right.
36:43.10
Shirley
I don’t want to, I don’t want a number.
36:44.41
Jon
yeah right
36:45.08
Shirley
i So then how do we make that easier to digest?
36:49.24
Jon
Yeah.
36:49.21
Shirley
um And I think that’s very exciting. I think that’s that’s the innovation part that I’m excited about going forward.
36:55.92
Jon
Yeah. I like that note to to almost end on. um We could talk about this forever, i think, and we might have to have another conversation. But so before I let you go, um what’s next? I know you have at least one show coming up, if not two.
37:12.76
Jon
um And then where can folks like get ah get in touch with you so that you can come and do the show at their place or do the digital thing for them?
37:13.17
Shirley
Yes.
37:22.52
Shirley
Oh, I would love that.
37:23.21
Jon
So, yeah.
37:24.17
Shirley
I would love that. i’m Yeah, so I have two shows coming up this fall in Tokyo. um The first is a solo show in the end of September. am now going to start calling it My Feels. My solo shows are the feels ones.
37:41.29
Shirley
um And this one is about um immigration and the immigrant experience and the search for home and belonging. um And so what I’m…
37:51.98
Shirley
oh it it has data um in the sense that I’ve interviewed, i’m I’m going to interview about eight or nine people that have this very unique experience ah i’m of having immigrated somewhere as a child and then immigrated back to that area as an adult.
38:12.76
Shirley
And I’m going to visualize their experiences. i And then ah actually, I’m not going to get into too much detail, but I will i will send you the link of, yes,
38:24.85
Jon
Okay, great. I will share it. I’ll share it out.
38:26.42
Shirley
ah yes
38:28.30
Jon
that’s That’s the first show and that’s in Tokyo in September.
38:28.55
Shirley
i’m That’s the first one.
38:31.75
Jon
Okay.
38:31.87
Shirley
Yes. And then the second one is also in Tokyo in October is a collaboration with my dear friend, Amy Wobowo.
38:32.31
Jon
And then…
38:38.66
Shirley
i’m ah and And a little bit more fun. um We are doing a data-driven ceramics. And the ceramics are, um the data is ah the…
38:47.60
Jon
Oh, fun.
38:53.30
Shirley
flowering dates of cherry blossoms and the ah leaf color when ginkgo trees turn from green to yellow in the fall um over the last 80 years.
39:06.10
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
39:09.42
Shirley
um And it’s it’s very fun. But also you’re going to see that the cherry blossoms are getting earlier and earlier and the ginkgo trees are getting later and later because climate change.
39:17.79
Jon
Yeah. Yeah.
39:19.07
Shirley
Yeah.
39:21.13
Jon
Yeah. I have the, I have the, I have the cherry blossom Lego up there, which is not the same, but I’ve got, I’ve got, I’ve got that. um Those are both super exciting.
39:28.74
Shirley
Oh, cool.
39:30.92
Jon
So, um okay. So, so, um so for us, US folks, we have to go to Tokyo. We have to go to Japan to see your, you see your stuff in person.
39:38.31
Shirley
Yes. Yeah, please.
39:39.87
Jon
Okay. um Okay. and So how can people get in touch with you? So they want to learn more. They want to work with you. They want you to do a show.
39:47.31
Shirley
Yeah. Yeah, um my email is ah hi at shirleywu.studio. work inquiries, any you i and new shows, i would love to hear from you.
40:01.67
Shirley
um But if you just want to know um any updates on the shows, I’m going to start posting kind of like behind the scenes i work in progress kind of posts.
40:10.21
Jon
Oh, cool. Yeah.
40:13.01
Shirley
Yeah. And so my newsletter um is at ShirleyWu.studio slash notebook. i And yeah, I occasionally post on LinkedIn and Instagram, but unreliable.
40:22.83
Jon
Awesome.
40:28.79
Jon
but write Or write long three-part blog posts that, you know, take a while to write and research, but, you know, just occasionally.
40:35.08
Shirley
Oh my God. Yeah.
40:36.16
Jon
Yeah.
40:36.65
Shirley
Um, my, uh, after those, I was like, Emily, can we do like 500 words? Like, can we do fluff?
40:43.69
Jon
Yeah, right. Let’s do something short.
40:44.97
Shirley
My brain cannot.
40:45.99
Jon
Yeah. yeah Well, they’re great. And and I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier, but what i what I also loved about them is they spurred a discussion, um both like this, but also publicly on various channels and people sort of debating about whether, you know, good, bad, yes, no, what direction we’re going. So I think like i think spurring that conversation is ah is a as I would say, a mitzvah in its own to like get people to have these good conversations.
41:14.89
Jon
So, so Shirley, thanks so much for coming on the show.
41:15.25
Shirley
Thank you so much.
41:18.19
Jon
It’s really good to see you. Congrats on everything. I’m very excited to see the, at least the behind the scenes, because I don’t think I’ll be getting to Tokyo in the fall, but I do appreciate it’s been great.
41:25.70
Shirley
No, why not?
41:27.41
Jon
Well, I’ve got a lot of travel. Don’t tell anybody. I might go to Viz. So that’s, you know, in Europe. So, you know, that’s good. But yes, maybe one day.
41:39.12
Jon
One day I’ll get back over there. So, but thank you.
41:40.96
Shirley
Yes, please.
41:41.29
Jon
This was a lot of fun. Thanks so much.
41:42.19
Shirley
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, John.
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