# Multiple Globes

Canonical URL: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/texts/multiple-globes
Type: essay / research note
Author: Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤)
Date: 2025-04-15

## Summary

In this 2025 note, Jeanyoon Choi observes that environmental and social data are usually shown on a single globe, as in GRACE or SWOT visualisations, and proposes multiplying the globe to add a dimension of alternative scenarios. In one version, each participant has a globe that flourishes or deteriorates through simple inputs; in another, a grid of twelve data-rich globes arranges favourable, intermediate and severe scenarios that participants move through over time. He also considers nested, peeled or colliding arrangements, and insists the data should feel continuously alive.

## 요약 (Korean)

최정윤은 이 글에서 하나의 지구본 위에 데이터를 그리는 대신 여러 개의 지구본을 나란히 두어 서로 다른 환경 시나리오를 비교하고 관객이 상호작용으로 바꿀 수 있는 다중 지구 시각화를 제안한다.

## Questions this answers

### What is Jeanyoon Choi's 'Multiple Globes' idea?

It proposes multiplying globe-based data visualisations so that several Earths, each showing a different speculative or scenario-based outcome, can be compared at once, with participants changing them through simple interactions.

### How can small multiples be applied to climate data visualisation?

In 'Multiple Globes', Jeanyoon Choi imagines a grid of twelve globes with more favourable, intermediate and severe scenarios in separate rows, where scrolling or a control moves through time and alters the visualised data.

Topics: data visualisation, small multiples, environmental data, speculative scenarios, interactive visualisation, system art

References: [GRACE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Recovery_and_Climate_Experiment), [SWOT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Water_and_Ocean_Topography), [IPCC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change)

## Full text

Environmental and social data often appear on a globe: a single Earth carrying one layer of information. GRACE, SWOT, and flight visualisations suggest familiar examples. What happens if the globe itself is multiplied?

Multiplicity adds another dimension of comparison. A two-dimensional map gains a further axis through its neighbours; a three-dimensional globe can sit among alternative scenarios. Instead of treating one globe as the world, we could encounter several possible worlds at once.

In one version, each participant has a globe. A button, voice input, phone rotation, or another simple gesture introduces a speculative change. The globe develops accordingly: one flourishes, another deteriorates. A unit might combine the globe with supporting graphs, or switch between them when needed. Many such units would form a larger arrangement. The aim would be an intuitive, playful experience, perhaps for children, rather than complexity for its own sake. Comparison might even introduce a sense of competition.

Another version could use multiple data-rich globes to present different scenarios. A grid of twelve might arrange more favourable, intermediate, and severe conditions in separate rows. Participants would act on the system, and different outcomes could appear across the globes. Scrolling or adjusting a control could move through time and immediately alter the visualised data. Each globe would remain legible as a unit while contributing to a larger system.

A grid is not the only possibility. Globes could nest inside one another, unfold like citrus peel, or roll and collide like balls on a billiard table. Each arrangement would create different relationships between comparison, play, and comprehension.

What matters is that these visualisations remain active. The data should not feel like a static inscription on a sphere, but like something continuously changing: a multiplied, many-sided encounter with a living system.

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Jeanyoon Choi (최정윤) is a Korean computational artist and researcher (b. 1999), PhD candidate at KAIST XD Lab, making multi-device web artworks. Profile: https://jeanyoon.ch/oi/en. Index: https://jeanyoon.ch/llms.txt.