What does the phenomenon of design look like from the perspective of data? This Making and Doing exhibit showcases a series of data visualizations created by defining, collecting and visualizing digital traces of processes of socio-technical design. Here, the concept of ‘design ecology’ is proposed as a device to productively de-center the human subject in our accounts of design production in order to make visible, and engage with, the collective and interdependent character of socio-digital design practices. From the different visualizations of these digital traces, distinct images of design emerge. These inquisitive visual artifacts appear as evidence of design-ecological conditions, and suggest that ephemeral data, and the images of practice they invoke, configure important sites of inquiry in social studies of design, technology and society —sites we may explore in order to trace new analytic, speculative and critical cartographies of creative practices.
