The pleasure and pain of visualising data in times of data power

This article reflects on the growing urge among researchers to visualize large-scale digital data. It argues that the desire to visualize unfolds in the context of a complex entanglement of (1) the pragmatics of data visualization, (2) the problematic ideological work that visualizations do, (3) the politics of data power and neoliberalism, and (4) visualization pleasures. The article begins by outlining the considerations that constitute data visualization design, highlighting the complexity of the process. It then provides an overview of critical debates about the way that visualizations work, which are relevant to reflective visualization practice. Then, it turns to the context (of datafication and the neoliberalization of the university) in which academic researchers contemplate visualization futures and which simultaneously constrains the realization of these futures. Finally, the article acknowledges the cracks in these structures, the pleasure of visualizing data, for example, in using visualization for advocacy and social justice.