This document provides an overview of an exploratory visual approach to abstraction called "Imagining Data". It includes examples of 10 different artworks that visualize or abstractly represent various types of data through different mediums such as paintings, network diagrams, printed documents, and installations. The document serves to illustrate how data can be creatively interpreted and imagined through non-traditional visual forms.

1. Imagining Data
An Exploratory Visual Approach to Abstraction
Nomadic 2010
João Cruz
U.Porto
CRUZ@FBA.UP.PT
DATA — DRIVEN
HTTP://CRUZ.AT/BLOG

2. What is Now Proven Was Once Imagined, Andy Altman, Why Not Associates, Photo © Luís Barbosa

3. The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1632

4. The Polar Sea (aka The Sea of Ice, The Wreck of Hope, Caspar David Friedrich, 1823-24

5. Infome Imager manifestation, network visualization through the nomadic.org node, Lisa Jevbratt 2002-2008, Cruz 2010

6. Wikipedia, 5000 pages fully printed, Rob Mathews

7. Ole Wormʼs cabinet of curiosities, Museum Wormianum, 1655

8. Pancho Villa Expedition, around the camp-fire, United States Army Company A, 1916

9. All Streets in the lower 48 United States, Ben Fry, 2008

10. Spam Architecture, Alex Dragulescu, 2005

11. Perpetual Storytelling Apparatus, Julius von Bismarck & Benjamin Maus, 2009

12. Portrait (Rembrandt), Jason Salavon, 2009

13. The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

14. Thank you!