Is Raw Data an Oxymoron?
About the Newsletter
Re:connaissance is a monthly newsletter about information design as a cultural technique.
It examines maps, diagrams, data visualizations, images, and interfaces not as neutral carriers of facts, but as practices that structure perception, knowledge, and power. At times, these visual systems are the object of analysis; at others, information design itself becomes a means of inquiry — a way to trace, test, and investigate phenomena.
Each issue takes the form of an essay or visual investigation. Topics range from cartography and scale to networks and infrastructures; from archives and data graphics to political imagery. The focus lies on how information is produced, visualized, and mobilized — and on what these processes make visible, obscure, or actionable.
Rather than offering solutions or best practices, Re:connaissance is concerned with questions: What can be known through representation? Where does authority enter the frame? And what remains resistant to visualization?
The newsletter is written for designers, researchers, journalists, artists, and anyone interested in visual culture, knowledge production, and the politics of representation.
About the Author
Based in Berlin, Robin Coenen is an information designer working at the intersection of design, science, technology, and visual anthropology. After studying Visual Communication at FH Aachen and Zurich University of the Arts, he led the Digital Media Department at Atelier Intégral Ruedi Baur in Paris before pursuing graduate studies in Data Visualization at Parsons School of Design in New York.
In 2020, Robin co-founded the design studio Visual Intelligence together with sociologist and designer Danielle Rosales. The studio explores the visual articulation of complex artistic, social, and technological systems. In 2025, he co-founded conQrete Tech, a computer-vision startup bridging artificial intelligence and information design.
Since 2021, he has been a research associate in the Class for Information Design at the University of the Arts Berlin. His academic and artistic research focuses on mapping, data visualization, and digital methodologies in design research as tools for knowledge production, transformation, and dialogue.