Design Research Spotlight: Embodied Data

MFA alum Corina Coughlan gives an overview of the research she will present as part of the Rutgers Design Research Spotlight on October 29 in Tribeca.

For the full picture RSVP: https://forms.gle/NVaWs8mbfwhXdT7VA

When moving to the States from Ireland for my MFA, I intended to focus my design research on sports data in relation to female athletes. I rowed at university level in Ireland and was now a Division One athlete on the Rutgers women’s rowing team. My performance has always been measured by data -collected, monitored, and ranked daily. Rowers spend much more time on specialist rowing machines name than we do on the water. For years, I have been tracking my performance through screenshots of machines and fitness wearables. So, I was deeply immersed in data about my body, yet this was exclusively quantitative, with no qualitative data. Over the course of the MFA, I expanded these limited data sets to data communication and storytelling that encompassed embodied subjectivity. Informed by data feminism, I used my personal data to question the value of qualitative data in sports performance.

  

My way into this was through journaling which allowed me to listen to my body and understand what recovery methods and approaches to training were needed. This inspired me to design a training diary for menstruating athletes, providing them with detailed information on the different phases of the menstrual cycle and its relationship to sports performance. This holistic space enables athletes to give weight equally to qualitative and quantitative data. This galvanized me to have more open conversations with my coaches about how the menstrual cycle affected my training. Other women on the team then started to have these conversations with each other and coaches – which was really inspiring and empowering. Coaches, who are mostly male, rarely have these conversations otherwise. 

 

In my second year, my exhibit Data and the Athlete brought this material together and also sent me in a new direction. As I looked at this piece, the motion graphic on the left side evoked traditional data visualization, but the video on the right side felt more anthropoid, closer to the human experience. This was a transformative moment for me. I started to feel trapped in my data, and I also began to think deeply about what gives me joy in rowing. What fascinates me about the act of rowing is the feeling of synchronized movement, from the connection between people working together in a rhythmic flow to achieve a feeling of weightlessness. The skillful calibration of humans to create forward movement is the essence of rowing and, more broadly, is the essence of human collaboration. Data cannot capture this. Ursula Le Guin’s essay Telling is Listening spoke to what it means to find connection through synchronization and her writing guided me through my practice. Humans use movement to sync up with others in order to find connections and build relationships. We rely on entrainment as we get immersed in a motion or thought once we are in sync – we fall into time with each other without realizing it. Influenced by Le Guin, my research evolved into visual storytelling around synchronous calibration.

   

My senior thesis exhibition to calibrate included sound and video as forms of data visualization, exploring visceral data that we can hear, see, feel, or touch holistically. I also used the labor of synchronization within my own body as a visual metaphor for synchronization more generally. Rowers specialize on one side of the boat and inspired by the synchronization of left and right in rowing I began experimenting, writing with both hands simultaneously, trying to sync my left hand with my right while documenting my thoughts around synchronization and how it feels to be in and out of sync. The video installation of the left-hand annotation in comparison to the right gave a duality of perspective on the pursuit of calibration and synchronization.  
 
Through the development of my research, I have learned that data alone cannot tell a fully human narrative. Moving away from data and focusing on embodied experience allowed me to communicate the poetry of movement that data cannnot. I have allowed myself to incorporate complexity, humanity, and imperfection into my design practice, adapting to different visualization approaches.

All images: Corina Coughlan, 2023-2024

Rutgers Design Research Spotlight

The Flea Theater, 20 Thomas Street, New York NY
Reception and Presentations

Tuesday, October 29, 6:00-8:30 pm

RSVP: https://forms.gle/NVaWs8mbfwhXdT7VA

As our MFA in Design progresses to its fifth year, we announce our inaugural Design Research Spotlight, an evening of conversation and presentations by recent graduates of our MFA in Design program. For our alumni, design is a tool for inquiry, critique, speculation, as well as communication. The event is hosted by Chat Travieso, artist, designer, and the new Tepper Chair in the Department of Art & Design. Our graduate speakers are Corina Coughlan, Rachel Herring, and Melisa Tekin, who will present work that employs a range of media from print to installation to address their research directions.

Chat Travieso, Yes Loitering, research and design project 2017-Present  

Chat Travieso will speak about the social impact of design. He states, “I want my students to be civically engaged and be conscious of their impact on the world.” He is the co-founder of the multidisciplinary collaborative duo Yeju & Chat, with Yeju Choi. His practice encompasses community-centered urban interventions, public art projects, and research initiatives that explore ways of creating more inclusive and just cities.

Corina Coughlan, Calibrating Hands, video projection, 2024

Corina Coughlan’s work uses design to tell feminist narratives, particularly around the female body and performance data. She is driven by the desire to make data more human and accessible through visual storytelling and immersive experiences. Her work looks to expand abstracted data communication to encompass lived experience by visualizing experiences and sharing personal narratives.

Rachel Herring, Cellular Balance, installation, video projection, book, printed matter, 2024

Rachel Herring is a medium agnostic educator, writer, and designer creating work at the intersection of techno-critique, design ethics, and participatory research. Her background as an art director in Manhattan’s beauty industry, informs her desire to interrogate the ethics of design. She is interested in how the rapid pace of technology, intertwined with the aestheticization of society, shapes our perception of time, space, and sociopolitical dynamics. Ultimately, her work is about a way of being in the world—slowing down and looking closely at the everyday. In a world where everything is designed, she hopes to democratize design by creating products with the consumer and allowing them to customize products to best suit their individual needs. 

Melisa Tekin, presentation at Urban Design Forum Office Hours, 2004

Melisa Tekin is an Assistant Professor of Visual Communications at SUNY Farmingdale and is the Founder and Creative Director of M/WBE-certified graphic design studio Neighbors. With a background in Urban Studies, her research is focused primarily on housing and placemaking, using design as a tool to communicate important issues that affect our communities to the public. Melisa’s research examines issues of history, access, affordability and transparency in housing developments and public housing projects in New York City. She invites citizens to be curious about the spaces constructed around them, and to recognize the power of collectivism in dense environments, which also informs her research on placemaking in neighborhoods in New York City and beyond. 

Rutgers MFA in Design accepting applications

The MFA in Design at Rutgers University is an innovative program that situates a critical, experimental, and speculative studio practice within a major public Research University. Through close personal attention in studio and seminar classes, we enable designers and artists to develop and realize their distinct research directions. The MFA encourages work that is grounded in scientific, aesthetic, political, or social research. All admitted students receive scholarship support, and other opportunities including teaching where appropriate.   

Our dedicated studios and excellent facilities are on our campus in New Brunswick, an hour from New York and Philadelphia. The curriculum interweaves studio work and theory with opportunities for collaboration with scholars across Rutgers. The program is at the heart of an interdisciplinary department that fosters and integrates a dynamic range of art and design practices. The MFA encourages applications from designers, artists, and interdisciplinary practitioners. Further details on the program and how to apply are here

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Ryan Kuo | 3/5

From “Puzzle”, a work from 2022 by Ryan Kuo.

Ryan Kuo is an artist and writer based in New York City. His work uses digital systems and sequences to invoke a person or people arguing. This is not to state an argument about a thing, but to be caught in a state of argument. His projects have been commissioned and shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), M+ (Hong Kong), Queens Museum (NYC), and TRANSFER (LA). He was a 2022 Knight Arts + Tech Fellow. He is not a programmer.

Those affiliated with Rutgers can watch Ryan Kuo’s lecture recording here.

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Kelly Walters | 2/27

Kelly Walters is an artist, designer, and founder of the multidisciplinary design studio Bright Polka Dot. Her ongoing design research interrogates identity formation and systems of value embedded in Black visual and material culture. Kelly has curated a number of exhibitions, including KindredOpen Dialogue: Artists + Designers of Afro-Caribbean Descent and Remix: Activating the Archive andreceived a Graham Foundation award for her exhibition With a Cast of Colored Stars in 2021. Kelly has written about Black American design histories and the impact of colonization on the construction of the Black image.

VISITING DESIGNER LECTURE SERIES | Scott Reinhard | 2/13

A visualization of Starlink satellites by Scott Reinhard in The New York Times.

Scott Reinhard is a Brooklyn, New York and Sharon, Connecticut-based graphic designer and cartographer. He works as a Graphics Editor at The New York Times focusing on cartography and data visualization, and previously worked at the design studio 2×4 and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Scott holds a Master of Graphic Design from North Carolina State University.

Those affiliated with Rutgers can watch Scott Reinhard’s lecture recording here.