A manifesto published at IEEE Viz4Good 2021 (read the full paper) catalyzing, a project that lives here.
Feral data visualization is a posture for creating visualizations for livable worlds. To begin, it questions the (often harmful) logics of rational, objective, and universal truths often found in commonplace data viz practices.
Instead, feral data visualization aims to make legible our human and more-than-human collaborators (and our entanglements with them). Feral data visualizaing takes up Anna Tsing’s call to search and tell stories of contamination and survival on our damaged planet as part of our sensemaking practices—specifically through the visual patterning language of data visualization
Feral data visualization manifests in practices that seek collaboration with the organisms (humans and more) that, as Vincianne Desperet puts it, render our surrounding bioregions livable. Feral data visualization designers take up Natasha Myers’ call to “vegetize our sensorium,” to “learn with and alongside plants,” making them our co-conspirators.
Thus, feral data viz designers create botanical simulations based on local plants—designing visuals in the tune of collaborative survival, instead of mere control and extraction.’