Translating Texture
Melanie Feinberg, Daniel Carter, Julia Bullard, Ayse Gursoy · 2017
This conceptual essay uses the notion of texture to articulate the relationship between data infrastructure (the attributes and value parameters that give data its shape) and data environment (the mode of implementation in which data is stored and manipulated). We take experimental datasets that we authored with unorthodox, weird data infrastructure and translate those datasets from one data evironment to another. In performing these translations, we surface integration as a design activity. Integration work is often tedious, mundane, and technical--but it is nonetheless design. We show how texture arises from the integration of material components, demonstrating the effects of integration work upon user experience.