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Design

Hear the Year 2014 Through a Data-Driven Sound Sculpture

Last year seemed to fly by, but you can relive every week with HUSH's sculptural infographic instrument.
GIF by Beckett Mufson via

 "What does a year at HUSH look like?" asks the video presentation for introspective data visualization, Made By Numbers: A Data Sculpture. Created by HUSH, a design firm that specializes in interactive experiences that communicate complex information, their latest project is a sculpture made of stacked data points which doubles as an instrument able to play sonic representations of those same data points.

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To create the piece, HUSH used five different metrics to summarize the year 2014: Computers in Use, Images Made, Positive Sentiments, Travel Time, and Late Night Food. After plotting their results on 52 different five-axis graphs, creating a small tower whose amoeba-like curves tell the stories of rough, Red Bull-filled nights and days spent jet-setting on business trips, each week's data was then converted into sounds that are activated by motion detectors within the sculpture's body. When someone runs a hand along each week's worth of data, for example, the sculpture chimes like its layers are the keys of a piano. The effect is almost like that of a theremin, but instead of vocalizing frequency and amplitude based on the player's proximity to the instrument, each note represents a quantified part of HUSH's year.

Listen to the data of long nights and busy days in Made By Numbers: A Data Sculpture, and see how it was created in the making-of video, below.

Made By Numbers, HUSH, 2015

Made By Numbers, HUSH, 2015

Made By Numbers, HUSH, 2015. Images via

Made By Numbers: A Data Sculpture "Making Of" from HUSH on Vimeo.

Visit HUSH's website to see the projects they worked on throughout 2014.

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