Final Project Proposal--Revised
I've decided to change my final project for this class, due primarily to the fact that I was having a hard time trying to come up with a way to convey some sort of value statement or argument through a visualization of the MAD art collection. I've decided instead to create a visualization of plastic surgery data over the past 10 years, conveying the trends (and stunning increase) in various types of body modification that have occurred over the years, and the disparity between the sexes in regards to this type of surgery. As a data source, I'll be using statistics gathered between 1997 and 2006 by The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, which claims to offer "the most comprehensive collection of data available on the number of cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States."
Here's a very, very crude sketch of the concept--overall body size indicates percentage by gender of total surgeries, emphasizing the disproportionately large number of surgeries women are getting. Then, from year to year, the size of specific body parts will increase or decrease based on the number of surgeries in that area (e.g. rhinoplasty), allowing the viewer to spot surgery trends (and by extension, changes in beauty norms) overtime. My overall goal is that the freakishly large body parts that will result from the ballooning number of surgeries will convey my opinion that the rampant cosmetic surgery our culture is engaging in is a sort of mutilation and, at its core, an ugly practice. I also intend to make this visualization dynamic, in that viewers will be able to mouse over body parts and view the statistics for that type of surgery, and the percentage increase (or decrease) compared to previous years.
