Investigating materiality for a renewed focus on data design practice

This paper attempts to question reductionist processes of data science that help sustain digital economies and proposes a new perspective for a data design practice. It follows recent discussions about the materiality of data in design and proposes a new notion of data materiality that unfolds its ethical and ecological aspects from a philosophical point of view. This is presented as an opportunity to envision how data can be enacted as data practice within a system. We provide an example that illustrates different kinds of data and data practices, and how ethical and ecological challenges can emerge in a system. We show how systemic challenges can be alleviated within this new notion of data, demonstrating why recovering data materiality is crucial for an ecological future. We finally argue that designers play a significant role in this context, producing practical examples that extend theoretical discussions on data materiality.