The British Library

Commissioned by The British Library in 2019, Visualising Victorian News came together as an exhibition using data from digitised British Library newspapers to explore themes from 19th-century news and reimagine aspects of British 19th-century history. The show included artworks Crime & Tattoo and Time, Fire, House, which looked into the world of convict tattoos, and the language used to describe the Crimean War respectively. 

The artworks shed light onto the broader exhibition's rich exploration of Victorian news, and newly brought the art of historical data visualization into the walls of The British Library.

Crime and Tattoo

The work Crime & Tattoo reconstructed criminals' lives through the display of tattoo art, visualising an enduring and often the stereotyped relationship between the two. Data from The Digital Panopticon project, which details 76,000 convict tattoos, supported the conception and research framework for the artwork.

Tiziana Alocci, Crime and Tattoo, 2019; Courtesy of British Library.

Celestial maps such as John Seller's 1675 edition, inspired the work’s structure, dividing the composition into crime stories on the left and tattoo displays on the right.

John Seller, Map of the two hemispheres of the heavens, 1675.

Time, Fire, House

Time, Fire, House was created as a means to visualise language used around reports of the Crimean War within 19th-century newspapers, highlighting terms shaping British readers' war perceptions. Mechanical watch gears inspired the artwork's design, with each circle representing a year of war. The coverage’s fifty most frequently used words were extracted and coloured by category (places, nationalities, casualties, military actions, and public affairs), each illuminating the evolving focuses of wartime reportage.

Tiziana Alocci, Time, fine, house, 2019; Courtesy of British Library.

Tiziana Alocci, detail of ‘Time, Fire House’, 2019; Courtesy of British Library.

Preparation sketches and final installation

‘Necessity’ – Visualising soundscapes

‘Necessity’ was born out of a legacy of self-exploratory work. It draws influence from the technical rigour of information design and data visualisation yet expands into an oeuvre that sees commonality with Conceptual Art, Process Art, and a movement that concerns itself with the quantified self. It embodies a continuity of themes that have been both implicitly and explicitly interrogated over many years of artistic production.

The idea for the series began through conversations around the transference of sound data into visuality. In earlier works, raw sound material takes the form of music recorded by external artists, in Necessity, the raw sound data becomes oral landscapes of the self. As such, the series is an extended visualisation of the unification between sound and two-dimensional form, only working with sonic matter that consistently begins and ends with the artist – at times including one other person, or ambient sounds within the environment. Raw sound material might have included breathing sounds recorded over a night’s sleep, the sounds of a walk across a landscape, or the undulating breaths of shared intimacy.

The resulting series includes eight large-scale fine art prints belonging to a limited edition, each individually signed and numbered. Every piece in the series is available in two colour schemes: a light and a dark version. Two pieces from the series have been acquired by C3 Residency in Mexico City and are now part of its permanent collection. Others are on display at the Shoreditch Arts Club in London and at Einraum in Berlin.

‘Victoria (night)’ and ‘Victoria (dawn)’ have been acquired by C3 Residency in Mexico City and are now part of its permanent collection.

Victoria

Data visualisation of 2:45 minutes of birdsong recorded in Victoria Park, London. Victoria visualises a walk in London’s Victoria Park, taken on a sunny day amidst the sound of human activity, birdsong and other sounds becoming part of the white noise characteristic of an outdoor stroll. This soundscape converted into the pilot piece for the Necessity Collection, its formal characteristics referencing the section of a tree and its concentric circles.

Morpheús

Data visualisation of 6 hours, 46 minutes from one night’s sleep. A few years ago, when Tiziana began struggling with insomnia, she decided to record ambient noises during sleep to determine if external sounds were causing her restless nights. In this pursuit, Morpheus chronicled the sounds and rhythms of breath throughout one night's sleep, using these recordings as a sample to understand habitual sleeping patterns. This investigation into the patterns of a restless sleeper revealed a broken circle representing broken sleep, questioning whether external noises trigger moments of waking or if it is merely the provocation of the unconscious mind. This artwork is currently on display and available for sale at Einraum Berlin.

The Photograph We Never Took

Data visualisation of two voices. This work follows Tiziana’s father's death in 2019 and contemplates their relationship and the loss of her favourite photograph. Retracing this lost photograph prompted her to enlist voice recordings to recreate the image of the bond between them. The sound forms of the two voices join together as two uniting circles, replacing the missing photograph. This artwork has been featured in: Nightingale Magazine issue 2, Page Magazine, Design Matters Copenhagen, Beyond Tellerand Berlin, and part of the group show “Exploring Grief And Loss”, Willesden Gallery London (UK).

Stay There

Data visualisation of 8:27 minutes recording of intimate moments. Capturing the swaying breath of a couple enraptured by their intimacy, Stay There is the only work within the Necessity Collection that includes two identical circles. Representing the proximity of two lovers, the rings do not signify two separate waveforms but embody the physicality of two bodies and sets of breathing. Blurred frequencies emblematise their intertwining, sensual motion, heightened by the deep red colour that stains the canvas with inferred passion. The artwork is currently on display and available for sale (framed) at Einraum Berlin and at Shoreditch Arts Club in London.

Robertet Group – Digital Immersive Exhibition

The exhibition, Scented Connections, showcased 15 million data points as a means of illustrating the intangible qualities of perfumes. An interactive display featured 30 data portraits crafted for the Robertet Group in collaboration with French agency Artefact 3000. Each portrait was based on the most recent 100 fragrance formulas crafted by Robertet's artisans.

Working with Artefact 3000, the portraits were digitised and exhibited in a digital gallery, aiming to showcase the richness, complexity, and creativity of Robertet's artisans to a broader audience. The project intended to marry unlikely processes together – specifically, the fusion of ancient perfume-making processes with modern data visualization.

The Robertet Group, a leader in the perfumery industry, had a dual objective to honour its artisans and embrace the power of digital transformation. The project’s challenge was to demonstrate how modern data could enhance a craft rooted in a longstanding tradition of hand-borne instinct. By creating unique portraits for each perfumer, the exhibition sought to make the invisible art of perfume creation visible. In short, Tiziana used numbers to paint a picture of scent.

Scented Connection Galerie Digital, was presented as an immersive experience at the VivaTech conference in Paris.

Team Credit

Client: Robertet Group
Agency: Studio Artefact 3000
Artist: Tiziana Alocci

Tiziana Alocci with the Robertet Group and Artefact 3000 teams in Paris.

Visualising the voices of Ukrainian refugees

The artwork, Liberty Leading the People, was showcased at L’Officina Arte Contemporanea during the premiere of the documentary Tales from the Border. The work’s objective was to amplify the voices of Ukrainian refugees' and was created in 2022 with Capslock Magazine. Liberty Leading the People merged refugees’ stories into a poignant composition – a totem that symbolised freedom and justice amid Europe's conflicts.

Three Ukrainian women were interviewed by Capslock Magazine, capturing their personal stories, ongoing fears, and hopes for the future ahead. Tiziana then visually translated their stories into concentric rings – each representing one distinct voice. Using sonic data, the voices were merged, resonating as a unified cry for freedom, justice, and peace. Throughout the documentary screening, Liberty Leading the People guided viewers through a poignant exploration of border life in Ukraine, providing a visual narrative of resilience and humanity amidst turmoil.

The artwork’s title, Liberty Leading the People, pays homage to Eugène Delacroix's iconic painting, known for its symbolic depiction of liberty and democracy, transcended from its origins to become a universal symbol of liberation. Limited edition prints of the work are available for purchase through Tiziana’s online shop, with all proceeds dedicated to World Central Kitchen – a charitable organisation that responds to humanitarian, climate, and community crises by providing meals worldwide.

Tiziana Alocci, Liberty Leading The People, 2022.

Tiziana Alocci, Liberty Leading The People, Voice one, 2022.

Tiziana Alocci, Liberty Leading The People, Voice two, 2022.

Tiziana Alocci, Liberty Leading The People, Voice three, 2022.