Tempo shows the scale, emotions, and rhythm of one day of New Yorkers’ interactions with city government.

New York City is home to nearly 9 million and its government is a clearinghouse of 9 million peoples’ worth of transactions, from heart-filling to life shattering. Hidden in city records are our emotional valences: hundreds of millions of dreams pursued, dreams deferred, hearts broken, sighs of relief. Very first breaths and very last. It’s hard to see and feel these experiences through numbers alone.

Visitors hear a slice of the thousands of stories embedded in datasets recording births, SNAP cases, and scheduled evictions. The frequency of these transactions and their total numbers is visualized through masses of everyday objects and use of pulsing light. Tempo invites visitors to get close-in, to meet the lives and the stories and the nuance beyond what any number is able to tell us.