The Soft Data/Base compiles creative practices that record and/or confabulate soft(qualitative) data for invisible, illegible or otherwise data-avoidant experience. We are particularly attuned to crip and care frameworks wherein art is used as a tool for rendering and reorienting relationships with illness, grief, trauma, pain, etc.
Initiated as a Drew University Digital Humanities Summer Institute project, the Soft Data/Base holds and enacts arts-based research wherein written and oral communication is supplemented with networked drawing and collaborative screen, voice, and bird recording...[methodology continues on our About page]
keywords: care, data, diagnosis, meditation, observation, defamiliarization, appropriation, accessibility, visualization, process, method, disability, catharsis, crip, chronic, ill, sick, grief, trauma, glitch, mediation, collaboration, experimentation, chance, ritual, practice...[keywords continue on our Sandbox page]
Digital drawings accompanying project titles were each made as an initial meditation on that work by the Soft Data/Base team. Each drawing links to a corresponding project page with links and descriptions.
Bahareh Khoshooee. Grief Meditations: Thoughts and Prayers from the Glowing Rectangle. 2024. Workshops, 3D-printed sculptures, animation, installation. <Finnegan Shannon. Disabled Artist Autoresponder Poem. 2024. Video comprised of collaged away messages. Sarah Davis. Pill Cup. 2019-21. Silver, bronze. 6x7 cm each.
Sophie Auger. Afterimage. 2024. Sublimation print on aluminum. 5x12 inches.
Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Phillip Andrew Lewis. Spirit Molecule II. 2019. Genetically modified moss.Alvin Lucier. I Am Sitting in a Room. 1969. Sound art, performance.
Sondra Perry. IT'S IN THE GAME '17 or Mirror Gag for Vitrine and Projection. 2017. Digital video.Christine Sun Kim. Degrees of Deaf Rage. 2018. Charcoal and oil pastel on paper. Sharona Franklin. Drosophila Clock X. 2021. Silver, brass, aluminum, mixed metal, expired pharmaceuticals, wood, foraged bone, antler, photographs, enamel. 19.75×19.75 inches.
On Kawara. Date Paintings/Today series. 1966-2013. Acrylic on cavas. Various sizes.
Jill O'Bryan. Tonglen Breath Drawings. 2018. Graphite, oil pastel on rice paper. Sizes vary.
Malcolm Peacock. Five of them were hers and she carved shelters with windows into the backs of their skulls. 2025. Installation. Braided synthetic hair, prints, audio. 8x8 ft.
Sara J. Winston. Infusion. 2015-ongoing. Digital photographs.Michael Mandiberg. Live Study. 2019-24. Performance. Paintings. Video.Deborah Padfield. Perceptions of Pain. 2001-06. Composite photographs. Various sizes.
Park McArthur. Carried and Held. 2012-ongoing. Museum wall label.
Ryan Woodring. Today and Possibly Tomorrow. 2022. 3D-printed candies. Lauryn Youden. Dead Paper. 2022. Performative reading, ritual. paper, invisible ink, fire.
Carolyn Lazard. In Sickness and Study. 2015-ongoing. Digital photographs.
Lenka Clayton. How We Thought it Would be and How it Was. 2025. Paperback book. 9.5 x 11.5 inches.
Srinivas Mangipudi, Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi, Curatorial assistance, Diya Shah. Climate Recipes. 2023-present. Book, installations. Size variable.
Rosalie Yu. A Ritual of Habits. 2018. 3D Models, interactive video.
Catalina Tuca. The Sensitive Project. 2020-23. Participatory archive. 3D prints, animation, interview.
Johanna Hedva. The Clock Is Always Wrong. 2022. Kinetic sculptural objects, textile prints, found objects, drawings, text, audio.
Leslie Roberts. Datebook project. 2020. Small daily list drawings. ink, colored pencil, marker on graph paper. 3x4 inches.
KYRIANNA. Portraits. 2018-ongoing. Mixed media on paper and canvas. Various sizes.
Nikki Lindt. The Underground Sound Project. 2018-ongoing. Sound installation. TJ Shin. The Vegetarian. 2022. Installation.Bahareh Khoshooee. Grief Meditations: Thoughts and Prayers from the Glowing Rectangle. 2024. Workshops, 3D-printed sculptures, animation, installation. Yuji Agematsu. zip: 01.01.20 . . . 12.31.20. 2020. Mixed media in cigarette pack cellophane wrappers on wood backed acrylic shelf, latex paint.
Smita Sen. Feelings, Fossilized. 2022-23. Drawings, sculptures.
John F. Simon, Jr. iClock. 1998-present. Daily drawings, website.
Yo-Yo Lin. Resilience Journal. 2019. Hardbound book. 5.5x8.5 inches.
Ori Gersht. White Noise. 1999-00. Photographs.Dominic Quagliozzi. The Fragility Drawings. 2022. Graphite and white thread on clinic table tissue paper. 21x25 inches per drawing.
Jason Lazarus. Used webcam covers. 2019-present. Live archive, archival pigment print. 40x65 inches.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres. (Portrait of Ross in L.A.). 1991. Candies in variously colored wrappers, endless supply.
Kunié Suguira. Racks. 1994. Gelatin-silver prints mounted on Plexiglas, metal rack.