Abstraction Today 

Kim Albrecht (Folkwang University Essen)

Data Visualization as Abstract Realism

The relationship between data visualization and abstraction is a paradoxical one. On the one hand, data visualization is the ultimate abstraction: it begins with a blank space onto which designers inscribe geometric symbols—lines, circles, rectangles. On the other hand, these symbols are tethered to reality, tasked with representing complex phenomena such as global COVID-19 deaths, trade flows spanning centuries, or atmospheric CO₂ levels over millennia. In this way, data visualization operates as a form of abstract realism: removed from the concrete, yet deeply invested in rendering the real.

This talk explores the epistemic and aesthetic dimensions of data visualization, examining how abstraction shapes our perception of reality. Drawing on theoretical perspectives and a range of artistic and research-based projects, I will interrogate how data visualization constructs, distorts, and challenges the relationship between abstraction and reality. By critically engaging with its visual grammar and ideological underpinnings, this talk will reflect on the tensions inherent in making the invisible visible through abstraction.