Datawalks
Have you ever walked a dataset?
What datawalks are
Have you ever looked at, read, or listened to a dataset while walking through the ecosystem it describes?
Datawalks reclaim ecosystem data as a way to (re)create relationships with more-than-human entities. They propose datasets as situated and embodied experience, explored while being immersed in the ecosystems they describe. In this way, each dataset becomes an instrument to know a specific aspect of the world that we couldn’t experience otherwise.
Datawalks are a way to engage participants in careful abstractions, closing the separation between data, ecosystem, and humans.
At the DRS 2026 conference we ran the format for the first time, engaging over 50 participants in:
- Looking at the sky beyond what is visible, knowing far and ancient galaxies.
- Wandering in a meadow while listening to the ecological network of species and their entanglements.
- Being with a tree while discovering that microscopic details on the bark uncover its untold stories.