Kaki King & Giorgia Lupi: "Bruises: The Data We Don't See" | Talks at Google

Still touring her groundbreaking multimedia show “The Neck is a Bridge to the Body,” acclaimed composer Kaki King has partnered with information designer and visual artist Giorgia Lupi, author of Dear Data, to create an audiovisual interpretation of a frightening personal journey, turning fear into beauty, making sense of the unknown. Having previously worked together on a design project for Hennessey, Kaki and Giorgia have continued to tap into what Giorgia calls “Data Humanism” to explore the emotional and cognitive uses of data.
Watch "Bruises" Here:
Last summer, Kaki’s three-year-old daughter was suddenly diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, turning her family’s life upside down. After a blood test, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP), where her body attacks her platelets, a crucial part of blood clotting. The following weeks were a terrifying spree of platelet transfusions, courses of steroids, blood tests, and abject terror as Kaki and her wife watched their daughter’s platelet levels rise and fall.
When her friend and fellow artist Giorgia Lupi learned what the family was going through, she proposed a creative exercise using music, art, and data - both medical and personal - to help Kaki bring a sense of clarity and calm to what was happening. The result is the beautifully cathartic "Bruises" (), an audiovisual “mapping” of the data collected as Kaki tracked her daughter’s bruises and platelet counts, along with her family’s stress levels.
Clinical records alone hardly capture the full impact the illness of a child has on a family. Can a softer and more empathetic approach to what we so coldly call “data” help us make sense of what’s happening in our lives? Can data visualization help us emotionally as well as cognitively?
For a deeper and more detailed exploration of this project, read Giorgia’s story on Medium ().