Truth & Beauty

Beyond the bar chart

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Talk at [KIKK Festival 2026](https://kikkfestival.be/talks/moritz-stefaner-talk-kikk2026) in the Grande Salle of the Théâtre de Namur.

A Hidden Infrastructure at KIKK Festival

Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT

An installation version of [A Hidden Infrastructure](/projects/spun-a-hidden-infrastructure) was shown on the city-wide Art Trail of [KIKK Festival 2026](https://kikkfestival.be/installations/a-hidden-infrastructure-art-trail-kikk2026), Oct 22 to 25. Visitors could spin and zoom the globe of mycorrhizal fungal density on a large projection, in French or English. Presented by [SPUN](https://spun.earth/) with partners SOILSCAPE, AMOLF and VU Amsterdam.

Underground Science. Underground Stories.

Mon, 21 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT

At the [Narrative Change Summit](https://climatefilmfest.com/festival/narrative-change-summit-2026) of the [Climate Film Festival](https://climatefilmfest.com/festival) during NYC Climate Week, I joined a session convened by [SPUN](https://spun.earth/) on why data alone so rarely moves people, and what makes science stick. I showed how we turned SPUN's maps of underground fungal networks into [A Hidden Infrastructure](/projects/spun-a-hidden-infrastructure), then talked science storytelling with Toby Kiers (SPUN), Alessandra Yupanqui (Sapiens) and Willow Defebaugh (Atmos), moderated by Mandy Nguyen.

A Hidden Infrastructure

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There is an incredible hidden infrastructure of ecosystems right beneath our feet: arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. They connect to over 70% of plants, extend root networks up to a 100 times, and reach a length of 1 billion times the distance to the sun. Centered around a globe with ground-breaking new data on the density of these hyphal networks, this data narrative provides a glimpse into this fascinating underground world.

Explore Explain S6E8 with Enrico Bertini

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Together with [Enrico Bertini](https://enrico.bertini.io), I appeared in a special two-part episode of Andy Kirk's [Explore Explain](https://visualisingdata.com/2026/03/explore-explain-s6e8-moritz-stefaner-enrico-bertini-part-2/) series. We each shared five significant visualization-related works by others that have most influenced our thinking about data visualization, plus a selection from our own work that has been significant to our careers. Watch [part 1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT_EL7dXh6U) and [part 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gc12QKiGEQ).

INGRAPHICS contribution

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMT

[INGRAPHICS](https://schwochow.shop/products/ingraphics-magazine) is a „magazine for visual thinkers“ — and I was kindly invited to contribute a double spread. I created a visual overview of the long history of Elon Musk‘s not-quite-materialized predictions on autonomous cars. The magazine is full of stunning visuals, and completely self financed. Grab a copy — it’s worth it!

VISCOMM keynote 2025

Sat, 08 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As invited keynote speaker for the [VISCOMM workshop](https://www.viscomm.io/) at [IEEE VIS conference](https://ieeevis.org/), I talked about current trends in data visualization, my design approach, and how our profession is changing in the recent wave of AI tools.

State of Neuroscience

Sat, 01 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMT

This visual puts 50 years of neuroscience research on the map — by analyzing nearly 350’000 research publications and extracting salient keywords. Based on this, we were able to map the semantic concept space of neuroscience research: how are topic related to each other — and where is the current focus of attention?

Truth & Beauty for the German administration

Tue, 21 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

At the 11th [Öffentliches Gestalten](https://oeffentlichesgestalten.de/) meetup on "Visualising data", hosted by [CityLAB Berlin](https://www.citylab-berlin.org/en/start/) and [DigitalService des Bundes](https://digitalservice.bund.de/en), I shared more recent work for and with the German Federal government — including the [Climate—Conflict—Vulnerability Index (CCVI)](https://climate-conflict.org) for the Federal Foreign Office and the [official COVID-19 vaccination dashboard](https://impfdashboard.de) for the Federal Ministry of Health.

The Process

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

There's a method to the madness.