Communications design students at the University of Applied Sciences in Schweinfurt, Germany built a demonstration, called ce.real, that uses mixed-media to present statistics. There are two tubes, filled with grains, that people can interact with to see quantitative information about worldwide production of cereal per country. (Via: infosthetics)
The process reverses the classical retrieval of statistics: the starting point is the actual number and not the country. The second glass tube makes it possible to compare two countries. One glass tube shows a specific country, whilst the other glass tube can be used for queries for additional countries. By rotating a glass tube, other data of a specific country can be queried (e.g. the level of energy consumption). This other information is projected as a pictogram onto the grains. The fill level of the pictogram corresponds to the statistical value. By changing the quantity of grains and thus the country, possible correlations can be observed: Does energy consumption rise with the production of cereals?
