2016 | DensityDesign Lab
On Their Way
Corriere della Sera
A map of public data about the journey of foreign fighters
In the context of understanding the phenomenon of violent religious radicalization, the map details the journey of foreign fighters to and from the territories of the conflict. In addition to publicly available data about their journey, the map depicts the distance of each country from the destination, its total population, and religious population.
Description
In the context of understanding the complex phenomenon of violent religious radicalization, this map details the journey of foreign fighters to the territories of the Caliphate. The data were retrieved from official organizations, research centers and consortiums that make these data publicly available.
"According to figures collected by the Soufan Group, between 27,000 to 31,000 people including women and children who would not normally engage in conflict have traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight in the region. Reasons that these people join any extremist group seem to depend on where they come from." — Wikipedia
Starting from the data about the movements of the fighters from their home countries to the combat fields, the project studies the role of social, religious and economic indexes that might influence the reality of each individual and that could be crucial in driving the need to look for equilibrium elsewhere missing.
The countries of origin are placed horizontally by the distance from the fighters' common destination. The size measures the country's Muslim population while the vertical distribution represents the country's overall population. This way, a comparison between the worldwide Muslim communities can be performed by the reader.
The key elements of the map are the flows of foreign fighters leaving from all the different countries worldwide to merge into one common entity. It is interesting to notice the relation emerging between the size of the flow and the size of the Muslim community per each country. When this ratio is particularly strong, the country is highlighted in stronger hues of red accordingly. The more intense the color, the more foreign fighters over the country's Muslim population.
The publicly available data from The Soufan Group also provides information about the official number of returnees from the combat field back to their home country. This movement of people is visualized with the yellow flow that leaves the original destination and goes back into the respective countries. Retunrees are not to be intended as "survivors," as the data considered here are not about how many people lost their lives.
Density Design final synthesis studio
Design process
The project was developed during the 2016/2017 edition of Density Design final synthesis studio, with the aim of learning to observe and represent controversial phenomena from different perspectives, and visually communicate them to different publics.
The topic of radicalization was chosen among the “Societal challenges” identified by the European Union as the most urgent. Throughout the project and research we narrowed down this macro-topic until we identified the specific controversy of violent religious radicalization in relation to the extremist organization of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
Phase 1
Exploring official data
The course was structured in three main phases, each one with the objective of facing the different problems related to information visualization, although through distinctive and different outputs. The data visualization on the journey of foreign fighters was the final output of the first phase of the course, in which we were asked to choose, use and communicate official data sources. The design process was greatly supported by the course material and bibliography, as well as direct revisions of the work with the professors. Special attention was given to the design of the visual model to illustrate our academic learnings of the theory and history of data visualization.
In addition to the visualization, as a team we also designed a complementary website that expands the insights of this research with country-specific contextual information, such as economic, religious and social data.
The website is available on Github: Travel the Distance. A simplified version is published on Corriere della Sera — La Lettura Digital.
Phase 2
Diving into the web
The second phase was dedicated to the study on data from unstructured digital sources. We were provided with a broad range of different tools to harvest, elaborate and analyze data, and earned a deep understanding on how to directly collect and reuse data. The output of this phase is a significant research website in which we studied the communication strategies of the Islamic State and its resonance in both the media and the public. The main challenge that we faced in this phase was defining the protocols to collect our raw material, sometimes even by building our own codes and tools. The research website is published on Density Design: IS a brand.
Phase 3
Visualization for advocacy
The last phase, the third, was the most experimental. The focus was on the public communication of the topic using the data collected in the previous phases, creating an installation that would allow the guests to physically “enter” the dataset. The way we designed the installation creates engagement within the visitor at first sight and provides a shocking revelation upon entrance. This stricking revelation becomes the narrative key for the unfolding storytelling through which the results of our research are delivered. The installation includes data-posters, data-video and data-audio pieces as well as physical data-sculptures to be touched and explored by hand. The installation remained on display for one month at Politecnico di Milano and was later dismantled. We created a digital teaser mini-site archive of what we built for you to see: JOIN US.
Team
- Serena Del Nero
- Marco Mezzadra
- Claudia Pazzaglia
- Alessandro Riva
- Alessandro Zotta
Visual Data
Corriere della Sera – La Lettura
On December 31st, 2016, the visualization was published on Corriere della Sera – La Lettura #266, the Sunday cultural supplement of the leading Italian newspaper. The map is featured in the Visual Data section together with an article by Lorenzo Cremonesi.
Feature interview
Market Cafe Magazine — Issue 2
In July 2017, the work on the journey of foreign fighters was published on the second issue of Market Cafe Magazine along with a feature interview focused on the importance of collaborating in a multidisciplinary team. We also talked about our design process and how an academic piece became "Best of Show" at the Malofiej Awards. Other authors featured on MCM Issue 2 are Paolo Ciuccarelli, David Hunter, SPIN Unit, Jonas Parnow, Maral Pourkazemi.
Market Cafe Magazine
is a London-based independent magazine about data visualization. It features stories of exceptional people
and mind-blowing works.
Created by Tiziana Alocci and Piero Zagami.
Pamplona, ES
Malofiej 25 Awards
On March 31st, 2017, the visualization was awarded at the prestigious Malofiej International Infographic Awards with Best of Show in print and an additional Gold medal in the category World and Nations. 1.334 entries from 134 organizations in 31 countries participated in the contest. Best of Show in the online category was won by The New York Times.
Short film of the awards.
Pamplona, March 31st, 2017
Malofiej International Infographic Awards Ceremony
“When we looked at this work, we understood it. The more we looked at it, the more we got out of it. It was beautifully designed, beautifully executed, and then at the end, or at the beginning depending on who you are, you notice the homage to the Great March. So it was all of these things, together, on a very difficult topic. This is something that I always wanted to understand and we all felt that we learned so much from it. The data was amazing, the presentation was smart overall and really wonderful, so congratulations.”
"The Malofiej Awards have since 1993 given recognition to the best infographics published in print and on-line across the globe. Every March an international jury meets for nearly four days at the School of Communication at the University of Navarra in Pamplona (Spain). They select those works worthy of gold, silver or bronze medals from among dozens of entries submitted to the competition." — malofiejgraphics.com
London, UK
Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards 2017
On November 28th, 2017, the visualization was awarded at the
Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards with
Gold
in the category Current Affairs & Politics.
It also won
Studio of the Year
for Density Design, where the map was created.
"The Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards celebrate excellence and beauty of information visualization around the globe." — informationisbeautifulawards.com
Boston, MA
The Art of Networks III Exhibition
From January 13, 2018 to March 12, 2018, the visualization was on display at The Art of Networks III exhibition, held at the Northeastern University in Boston, MA. The Art of Networks III is organized by Isabel Meirelles (OCAD University, Toronto, Canada), Matthew Brehmer (Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA), Marian Dörk (University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany), Ronaldo Menezes (Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL), and Nicole Samay (Northeastern University, Boston, MA). The exhibition was presented in conjunction with CompleNet 2018 – 9th Conference on Complex Networks on a dedicated second venue at the Network Science Institute, coordinated by Nicole Samay with support of Kate Coronges and Alex Vespignani.
"This exhibition, presents a dynamic cross section of data visualizations created over the past three years. Selected by a program committee, these visualizations were devised by leading research labs and studios around the world that are producing some of the most innovative work in this area." — Northeastern University, Center for the Arts
More information on The Art of Networks website.
Helsinki, FI
Aalto University — Visualizing Knowledge 2018
On May 4, 2018 the visualization was on display at Visualizing Knowledge. The showcase was accompanied by conference talks and workshops at Aalto University.
"Visualizing Knowledge features an exhibition that showcases new talents from the field of Information Design. Following an open call that yielded high quality entries from all over the world, 13 works were selected in regard to understandability, societal impact, aesthetic qualities and visual innovation." — Aalto University
Public
“Masterful piece of artwork: comprehensive, accessible, entertaining. More nuanced than many reports on terrorism.”
“It's an exemplary case for thought mapping open source content.”
“The overall balance of the design is masterful. […] Because of its novelty it’s not an automatically easy map to read. But there are clear instructions and the image demands the reader’s attention, and rewards repeat viewing.”
“Citazione a Minard eccellente.”
“Excellente et très claire infographie.”
“Hours of fun to be had making country comparisons.”
“The Grand Prix of students from Polytechnic University of Milan impressed me the most. […] I am strongly impressed by the personal acquaintance with their leader Paolo Ciuccarelli and I consider this award to be his significant achievement. […] It contains several bold experimental moves. I’m glad that it does not seem to me alone that the search for new data visualization solutions should continue, despite the simplification trend in favor of the speed of information consumption.”
Press
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- Malofiej
- Corriere della Sera and The New York Times win Best of Show award
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- Corriere della Sera
- Malofiej Awards: the Best Infographic of 2016 is for "La Lettura"
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- WIRED
- Five Roles of Design in the Transformation of Data and Information
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- Politecnico di Milano
- First Prize for the Data Visualization designed by "Density Design" students
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- 5W INFOGRAPHICS
- All the online winners of the Malofiej Infographics Awards
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- Diario de Navarra
- "Corriere della Sera" and "The New York Times" conquer Malofiej
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- Visualising data
- Best of the Visualisation Web – March 2017
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- Mangiatori di cervelli
- Italians: Champions in Infographics
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- VC.RU
- The Grand Prix of students from Polytechnic University of Milan
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- Dataviz Blog
- 2017 Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards announce groundbreaking Shortlist
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- Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards
- Winners 2017
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- Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards
- The Winners: Current Affairs & Politics
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- Corriere della Sera
- "La Lettura" and Density Design Lab triumph in London
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- CREATIVE REVIEW
- Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards 2017 – The Winners
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- Online Journalism Blog
- Visualisation without story is nothing
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- Prototypr
- Mapbreaking
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- Geographical
- Winners of the 2017 Information is Beautiful Awards
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- Q daily
- “信息之美”奖项公布，来看今年最好的数据可视化作品
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- Feero 肥肉
- 2017信息之美奖作品集|今年最好的可视化都在这里了
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- NetEase
- 2017信息之美访谈：没有故事的可视化是没有任何意义的！ | 独家编译
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- The Art of Consequences
- Ongoing War