Exploring How Fab Lab Machines and Personal Digital Data Inform One Another in Shaping Physicalization Practices

In an era where personal digital data permeates every aspect of life, fostering critical and creative engagement with its collection, interpretation, and representation has become increasingly essential. Moving beyond the traditional purpose of data physicalization, this paper explores how gestures, materials, and machines involved in physicalising data can actively reshape the understanding and representation of personal digital data and related collection practices. A one-week workshop with tools and techniques commonly employed in fabrication laboratories (fab labs), such as laser cutters and 3D printers, provided the occasion to reflect on how the act of making, as well as the dynamic interactions among data, tools, and materials, can uncover new insights and challenge established notions on the meaning and choice of representation. Based on the work of eleven participants from design and architecture backgrounds, we identify and describe five distinct approaches that highlight the potential of fabrication processes to expand traditional views on data understanding and representation. We observe a dynamic, iterative relationship between the data’s nature and origin and the tools or materials used for representation, with each continuously influencing the other. This interplay not only deepens the meaning embedded in the artifact but also supports the idea that shifting from static to generative and iterative forms of making can foster a critical rethinking of data collection and interpretation practices.