Published in "Information literacy in a post-truth era : 7th European

Conference on Information Literacy, ECIL 2021, Virtual Event, September

20-23, 2021 : revised selected papers", pp. 99–108, which should be cited to
refer to this work.
DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-99885-1_9

Perception, Awareness, Presentation: Using meditation

techniques to teach data visualisation literacy - a
case study

René Schneider

Haute Ecole de Gestion Genève, HESSO

17, rue de la Tambourine, CH-1227 Carouge, Switzerland
[email protected]

Abstract. Inspired by the ideas of Gestalt and the practice of meditation, this
paper describes an approach to bring together the corresponding techniques to
teach data visualisation, a subfield of information literacy whose importance will
considerably grow within the years to come. The course can be subsumed under
the motto that data, i.e. everything that is given, is the basis of meditation and that
data visualisation in its essence is a meditative process. The paper should be seen
as a return-of-experience based on a case study that shows how both techniques
intertwine almost naturally and can mutually benefit from each other.

Keywords: data literacy, data visualisation, meditation techniques, awareness,

perception, cognition.

1 Introduction

The idea for the course on data visualisation presented in this paper arose from a mixture
of necessity and accidence: first the need to design a course on data visualisation in a
relatively short time, followed by the decision to organise the course as a series of
workshops. The topic of Gestalt was to be given special importance right from the start,
as this aspect of visualisation is always considered important (by experts and novices)
but is usually only mentioned shortly at the beginning. These two basic ideas then led
to the logical consequence of dedicating the first workshop solely to the topic of Gestalt
and the coincidental insight, based on the personal experience of the course leader, that
meditation as bodywork is closely connected to the topic of Gestalt and that
visualisations (inner and outer) play a decisive role in both areas, Gestalt and
meditation.
This coincidence then led to the question of how far it would be possible to combine
each workshop with a meditation and to look for parallels between the main themes of
the workshops and meditation techniques. This question, as well as the resulting
answers presented in this paper, proved to be motivating and possibly worth to continue
in similar or different contexts, at least worth to share the experience with a larger
scientific community. This decision also lead to the consequence that technical tools,
which are usually considered of playing a major role in visualisation courses would play
a subordinate role.
Another framework condition, which consisted of the fact that the course was to be
designed for a comparatively small number of eight students, made it possible to engage
further in this rather unorthodox approach, at least unorthodox in the domain of
information science. Fortunately, the participants showed quite a high level of
acceptance from the beginning, leading to a significant momentum so that in the end
the meditation techniques were even enlarged and varied according to the students'
suggestion. Thus, yoga exercises were performed in two workshops, which in turn
allowed the lecturer to gain further insights into the connection between meditation and
data visualisation.
The paper is intended as a return-of-experience or outline of a case study that aims
to draw general conclusions about the use of meditation techniques in the field of data
visualisation in particular and information literacy in general. For this purpose, after an
introduction to the general context and references to relevant literature throughout the
paper, the course will be presented with its exact framework, structure and concrete
contents. The paper concludes with personal reflections, conclusions and general
recommendations.

2 General Context

Due to the vast amount of primary sources and referencing secondary literature that
exist for both (data) visualisation and meditation - starting with prehistoric images of
tally sticks [1] for data visualisation and the Mohenjo Daro Seal 420 [2] for meditation
- an attempt will first be made to narrow down the range of topics and to work out the
three main foci of the paper: these are a) meditation and its main characteristics b) data
and its visualisation c) hypothetical assumptions about their fusion.

2.1 The technique of meditation

In order to describe or define the nature of meditation, it is advisable to first distinguish

– for the sake of a better understanding – between the goal of meditation and the
concrete practice.
The ultimate goal of meditation is probably best described by the second verse of
Patanjali's Yogasutras [3] (which are to be understood as instructions for the practice of
meditation, and not as a book of exercises for physical yoga postures): योग: िच�-वृि�
िनरोध - to be read in its transliteration as 'yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ'; to be understood
in its translation as ‘yoga, i.e union, is the coming to rest of the movements of the
thinking mind’. The goal of meditation is thus a state of mind or better said the quietness
of the mind.
The achievement of this goal while practicing, in terms of scope, is a vast and diverse
field, often described as a (laborious and longwinding) path, usually involving one or a
variety of techniques, more precisely cultural techniques. (The latter is underlined by
the fact that meditation techniques exist in almost all major cultural areas, but on the
other hand differ from culture to culture in their concrete practice).
These are mainly techniques of directed or undirected observation or the mindful
performance of simple or arbitrarily complex exercises, which are usually learned under
guidance. (One is inclined to say that meditation also requires literacy.) Often the
concepts of mindfulness [4] and awareness are seen as central to the practice of
meditation.
Meditation as a technique can thus be understood as an orientation towards external
and internal phenomena, that is, towards the input and throughput of cognitive
perception: Perceptions of space and light, sounds, bodily sensations, thoughts and
emotional states. It usually also focuses on the breath to (for example, in the case of
Vipassana meditation [5]) sharpen the mind; in some cases, especially guided
meditation, it involves evoking inner images, sometimes as components of stories
describing imaginative stories.

2.2 The technique of (data-)visualisation

Visualisations have always been an eminently important instrument of information

transfer in the history of mankind and will more and more gain importance through the
ongoing digitization of our societies. They play an important role insofar as they
preceded and created the most important instrument of communication, i.e. language,
namely through through transfer of knowledge through linear alphabets (especially in
the rebuses of the hieroglyphic scripts of the Maya, Egyptians, Sumerians and Chinese).
Furthermore, they are and have been used again and again to interrupt the linear
course of the scripts in order to illustrate them with the means of two-dimensionality.
In this process, various elements, including again textual elements with other
components (colours, icons, geometric figures, etc.) are combined according to certain
principles (arrangement, proportioning, structuring, etc.).
The visualisation of data plays an eminent role in, whereby it is always necessary
to clarify what is meant by data. In our context, the question is not to be clarified in
terms of definition, but - with regard to the course on data visualisation to be explained
- methodically, by the process of desiging and creating data. A brief look at the history
of data [6] (as a scientific term starting from Euclid's Dedomena [7]) shows that the
term and its practical data depend very much on the ideas, discourses and scientific
possibilities of the respective epoch [8] and, as a consequence, are subject to frequent
changes.
Looking more closely at the contemporary use of data, the concepts and methods of
Big Data and - even more important in the scientific context - Data Science come to the
fore, both giving strong emphasis on quantitative, technical and machine-based aspects.
At the same time, there are voices to be heard postulating a transition from data-driven
design to design-driven data [9] for which - without disregarding observation-based
quantification [10] - aesthetic-humanistic aspects are coming to the foreground.
Postulations that were already applied to the principles and laws derived from the
concept of Gestalt [11].

2.3 Assumptions

What has been said so far allows us to compile conjectures about the connections
between meditation, data and their visualisation, which can form the basis for a
theoretical framework that is yet to be established in more detail. So far, they take the
form of a list of ten interrelated lemmata, beginning with an admittedly radical and
certainly immodest and pretentious statement, which is at the same time to be
understood as a reference to and reverence for Wittgenstein's dictum of the world [12].

1. The world is everything that is given.

2. What is given is data.
3. What is given is perceived and processed cognitively by the individuum.
4. Meditation is the mindful awareness of this cognitive process.
5. Mindful awareness supports the cognitive processes of discernment.
6. Visual perception is a primary, often dominant component of what is given
and perceived.
7. Visual perception and processing do not end when the eyes are closed.
8. It remains an integral part of the inner part of the continous stream of
consciousness.
9. Mindful awareness of this process can enhance the production of visualisations
for others.
10. The process of producing data visualisations can itself be a meditative process.

The following course description is intended as a first attempt to verify these

assumptions.

3 Course Description

3.1 Curricular setting and frame

The course ‘Data Visualisation’ is a compulsory course in the third semester of the
actual Bachelor of Science programme in Information Science at the University of
Applied Sciences Geneva. It was offered in German for the first time in the autumn
semester 2020 for students of the bilingual programme option in French and German.
Due to the specificity of the content and the linguistic situation of all those involved
in teaching, parts of the course were also taught in French and English, which proved
to create no problem for all participants. A total of three lecturers (one professor and
two assistants) and eight students (seven female, one male; five of them full-time and
three part-time) took part in the course.
For a more detailed understanding of the approach, it is necessary to point out that
the course was taught in the autumn semester of 2020/2021, more precisely in the period
from 17 September 2020 to 03 december 2020 in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland,
i.e. during a phase referred to as the second wave of the Corona pandemic and in a
location that had at that time the second highest incidence of infection in Europe.
The course therefore began as face-to-face teaching, which was replaced from 02
November 2020 by a phase of so-called hybrid teaching, in which students could decide
on their own responsibility whether they wanted to follow the course online at home or
on site while respecting the hygiene rules (keeping distance, disinfection and wearing
masks). The particular size of the room and the small number of participants meant that
the majority of students (six out of eight) followed the course on site. A single workshop
(on tools) was conducted entirely online during the changeover period at the beginning
of November.

3.2 Organizational and didactical structure

Based on the instructor's experience as well as purely practical considerations, it was

decided before designing the content of the course to run it as a series of seven four-
hour modules in a relatively short sequence. The seventh module was a priori reserved
to be the closing module, which would allow students to a) present their work in
individual presentations and b) give personal feedback to the group and the lecturers.
Each module was set under a single thematic focus for which - in addition to
meditative introductions - short, i.e. maximum 20-minutes theoretical lectures were
designed. The largest part of each module, however, was to be made up of practical
exercises.

3.3 Content

The premises described under 2.3 led to the conceptualization and compilation of seven
workshops: I. Gestalt, II. Data, III. Poster Design, IV. Observe, Collect, Draw, V. Tools,
VI. Data stories, and VII. Final Presentation (Synthesis), which will be presented below
with its learning objectives, meditations, theoretical guidelines and, above all, the
corresponding practical exercises.

Framework
In order to give the course a continuity, so to speak a common thread, all the practical
visualisation exercises were done on the theme of CEVA (i.e. Cornavin, Eaux-Vives,
Annemasse) [13], a major project of the Swiss Federal Railways to build the first metro
line in Geneva, connecting the city with neighbouring cantons and surrounding France.
The train line was opened barely a year before the course after a long period of planning
and construction. All practical work in the course had to be related to the theme of the
workshop and applied to the CEVA project or metro line. As a rule, this task was set in
the course, giving the students the opportunity to start the practice being coached and
finishing them as homework (individually or in the group) before presenting the result
to all participants at the beginning of the following course after the introductory
meditation.

Workshop I: Gestalt
Objectives: Understanding the connection between visualisation and Gestalt.
Meditation: In a first meditation, after directing the concentration to the external
circumstances of the room (light, sounds) and the external and internal sensations of the
body, the eyes were closed and the attention was continuously directed to the (invisible)
external contours of the body. Subsequently, the eyes were opened again in order to
establish a comparison between the inner and outer image of the body.
In a final meditation at the end of the course, attention was drawn to the fact that
when the eyes were closed, the outlines of the body or its gestalt (!) blurres and an
energetic field comes to the fore, whereas immediately after opening the eyes, the
outlines of the body and its shape or gestalt emerge again.
Theory: The rest of the course included an introduction to the basic principles of
data visualisation and the terminological distinction between infography and
presentation on the one hand, and visualisation and exploration on the other, with the
aim of illustrating the connection between preattentive properties, active vision and
perception, as well as their consequences for a successful conception, taking into
account the principles and laws of Gestalt theory.
Practice / Homework: The practical work consisted of an application of Gestalt
principles to facts and contexts of the CEVA railway line as a result of an independently
exercised information research on the web.

Workshop II: Data

Objectives: a) Overview of the terminology, nature and typology of data, b)
underline of the relationships between data and metadata, c) description and collection
of data in data papers and repositories, c) first compilation of individual and aggregated
data.
Meditation: The meditation started from the simple principle explained at the
beginning of this paper that data in the sense of the original meaning of the word is
everything that is given, e.g. sounds and noises, light, the external and internal
sensations of the body, thoughts and feelings, and finally the breath as an anchor to
which one can always return and was realized as a walkthrough these phenomena.
Theory: The theoretical input was limited to two short presentations on the history
of the concept of data (from Euclid to Data Science) and the basic components of
information graphics as outlined in [14].
Practice / Homework: These presentations were interspersed with short exercises in
which students were playfully introduced to different types of data, their metadata as
well as their description in data papers and storage in repositories step by step with the
help of specially created cards. Finally, the students were tasked with aggregating
individual data on the CEVA project and compiling it in an information graphic.

Workshop III: Poster Design

 Objectives: a) Collation and pictorial representation of separated data on a two-
dimensional surface, b) application of the basic principles of information visualisation.
Meditation: After a meditative attunement, which was linked to the previous objects
of meditation (space, light, sounds, external and internal sensations), the 31-point
technique [15], developed in yoga nidra, was practised. This is a concentration and
visualisation exercise from the tantric tradition of yoga, in which attention is applied to
31 (or 61) body points in a prescribed order. Through the inner drawing of the body
contours, the later practised figurative drawing in poster format should thus be prepared.
Theory: In the theoretical part of the workshop, basic techniques of information
visualisation were elaborated with a special focus on or an introduction to the "Objects-
Placement-Territories" hypothesis [16], which were then worked out step by step with
exercise material kindly provided by Stephen Anderson [17] (concerning Arrangement,
Sequences, Shapes, Boundaries, Relationships, Attribute Intensity) and transferred to
the context of poster design.
Practice / Homework: These presentations were alternated with short exercises in
which different types of data, their metadata and their description in data papers and
storage in repositories were recorded step by step with the help of specially created
cards. Finally, the students were asked to aggregate individual data on the CEVA project
and compile it in an information graphic.

Workshop IV: Observe, Collect, Draw

Objectives: To work out the basics of the principles of data handling elaborated by
Lupi and Posavec: Observe, Collect, Draw [18].
Meditation: In analogy to the method of Lupi and Posavec, it was assumed that
meditation work should also be understood as observation, collecting impressions and
dealing with inner images. To illustrate this, a meditation was put together which - after
an introduction as in the previous courses - focused particularly on the breath. This was
counted three times over the duration of one minute before the experience made in the
meditation was individually reflected and visualised.
Theory: The book "Dear Data" [10] as well as the associated methodology of
"Observe, Collect, Draw" [18] in the book of the same name were introduced in three
steps.
Practice / Homework: Each step was coupled with a practical task. Afterwards, the
students, who worked together in pairs anyway, were asked to create postcards at the
CEVA stations or from data available on the web according to the procedure of Lupi
and Posavec and to send them to each other. The postcards were presented by the
recipients in the following workshop.

Workshop V: Tools
Note: Due to the particularly high incidence rate in the canton of Geneva at the time
of the workshop, the course had to be conducted digitally at short notice. Thus, all
components of the course (meditation, theory and practice) were taught synchronously
by the instructors using appropriate online teaching software.
Objectives: To learn the basic functions of a visualisation software.
Meditation: Due to the special circumstances, an already existing meditation was
used that seemed to be appropriate to the moment: the "Accepting and Letting Go
Meditation" by Andy Hobson [19]. The meditation (translated into French by the
teacher for this purpose) leads through awareness of a) the body in its entirety, b) the
breath, c) the thoughts to d) a general attitude of acceptance and letting go regardless of
external and internal circumstances.
Theory / Practice / Homework: The basic functionalities of a proprietary software
for creating data visualisations were presented. The students were asked to create a
visualisation with this software (based on their data collected so far) for the following
workshop.

Workshop VI: Data Stories

Note: In the meantime, the class was switched to a so-called hybrid mode, which
made on-site participation voluntary; students could follow the class either online from
a location of their choice or in the classroom, following the current hygiene rules.
Furthermore, the practice of yoga was addressed for the first time in this workshop,
due to a student's reply of whether there were also practices for enlivement, after the
lecturer had regularly pointed out the calming effects of meditation.
Objectives: a) To acquire the basic knowledge of constructing a data story, b) the
hero's journey as data story, c) data story typology.
Meditation: The yoga exercises began with a simple variation of the sun salutation
Suryanamaskar, especially because of its dynamic execution and the resulting vitalizing
effects. Afterwards, different yoga exercises were presented with respect to their
connection to visualisation and data stories under the motto "Every yoga posture tells a
story": yoga postures [20] often represent geometric figures themselves (e.g. the posture
of the triangle, Trikonasana) or are imitations of nature (e.g. the posture of the dog,
Adho/Urdva Mukha Shvanasana or of the moon Ardha Candrasana) or make references
to myths, legends and stories (e.g. the posture of the hero Virabhadrasana and many
many more). The postures were introduced and then practised together. It was also
pointed out that correctly understood and performed yoga is itself a meditative process.
As in visualisation, yoga is also about representation and presentation, because the
postures are representations of the body and thus presentations of the self.
Theory: After a historical outline of the importance of storytelling for humanity and
historical examples of data stories, several construction patterns of data stories were
presented and explained (e.g. Three-Act-Structure, Hero's Journey) as well as the
importance of the necessary ductus and the procedure for creating the respective story.
In addition, similarities and differences between "storytelling with data" [21] and data
stories were discussed.
Practice / Homework: Each group was asked to create a data story from the data
collected so far using one type.

Workshop VII: Synthesis

Objectives: a) Final Presentation of the works done throughout the course, b)
personal reflection and evaluation of the experiences made.
Meditation: In the final course, restorative yoga in the tradition of BKS Iyengar [22]
was offered, which allows to synthesise all the aspects practised before: the body work
of yoga, the contemplation of the breath in the long postures and the meditative state
that arises. For this purpose, a small sequence of five yoga postures was compiled,
which was performed with props to enable to hold it for a long time, leading to the final
contemplation of the breath.
Follow-up and closure: For the remainder of the course, the students were asked to
make individual presentations of all the work they had done and to give a personal
review of the course content and the experiences they made during the course, both in
the area of data visualisation and in the area of meditation. The course ended with short
feedbacks given by the two course instructors.

4 Return-of-Experience and Recommendations

The beforementioned evaluation done by the students and the course instructors was
unanimously positive, which is surprising and can only be explained by the small size
of the students and the fact that the group has worked together in different courses of
the bilingual information science program with the same and other teachers that were
open for experimental courses including a high level of interaction.
Nevertheless, some conclusions and recommendations can be drawn on the basis of
the experiences made:
- The overall experience of meditation remains the always same: meditation is
simple and difficult at the same time.
- While considering its usefulness for academic teaching, it should not be
forgotten that meditation has a value in itself and should not be understood in a
purely purposive way.
- Meditations and yoga exercises are not a do-it-yourself thing and should be
taught by experienced teachers who have already proven that are capable to
guide both small (about 5) and medium sized groups (about 20) without major
difficulties or even accidents. In the present case, it turned out that the course
leader and author of the paper had this experience, which on the other hand
made it possible to combine the ideas and techniques of meditation and data
visualisation.
- Any form of meditation is an encounter with oneself and it should be assumed
that not every student is willing or able to engage in this experiment. In this
case, it is possible to make the meditation exercises optional or to tell students
exactly what they should engage in.
- In any case, the person in charge of conducting the meditative exercises should
have enough empathy and flexibility to engage with the general and current
sensitivities of the students. The latter is certainly a competence that every
lecturer and teacher should have, but in the case of mind-body awareness
exercises, it is all the more necessary.
And, last but not least: Flexibility is everything, in the body and in the mind.
5 Conclusions

Meditation and data visualisation are cultural techniques that most likely emerged as a
product or rather side effect of what is commonly understood as the cognitive
revolution.
After the experience made in this course, it can be stated in a first conclusion that
meditation techniques in a concrete and figurative sense are a suitable didactic means
to introduce principles and skills of visualisation, to make them tangible and
understandable. They train the skills essential in both contexts (meditation and data
visualisation): the proper use of the senses (i.e. cognitive perception) [23], the
association of mindfulness and attention [24], as well as mastering and presenting the
resulting internal and external images (presentation) to allow discernment with the aim
of telling comprehensable stories [25]. The totality of the techniques learned can be
brought together in data stories.
To what extent the course described in this paper may as such serve as a blueprint
for other courses on data visualisation or how far the alternation of meditations and
practical experience of the meditated topic as a general scheme may be adapted to other
contexts, requires further experiments and broader studies (preferably with control
groups such as in [26]) in order to come to generally binding conclusions.
The integration of meditative components into the concepts of information literacy
seems to be a worthwhile endeavour in any case.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Laetizia Sabatini-Choquard for her very useful
contributions and support throughout this course.

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