SILM means eye in Estonian. The studio is named after what it asks of you: look longer than you normally would.

I am Arnaud Richter. By day I am Chief Digital Officer at a mid-sized company, where I run the whole data ecosystem: infrastructure, governance, visualization, AI. Outside those hours, I make data art. Not as a hobby, as a conviction.

Twenty years in data taught me the same lesson twice. Eight years in a media agency, where I understood that clarity is a perceptual problem before it is a technical one. Six years in a global automotive group, working on strategy, performance and cross-functional decisions, with data at scale and real stakes. In both, the pattern held: organisations invest heavily in data and still struggle to turn it into clarity or momentum. Dashboards multiply. KPIs expand. Insight rarely reaches the decision.

The missing link is not more data but a different way of seeing it.

Slow data

I work with datasets that describe change too slow to feel. Population over centuries, ethnic and linguistic composition across generations, islands, forests, lighthouses and many other angles.

The same method applies inside organisations, where the slow change is usually the one nobody has a chart for. How a platform is actually adopted across strategic programmes. How a team’s attention moves over four quarters. That work exists in the portfolio too and it is the kind of commission I take on.

Every piece is built on a double reading. From a distance it’s an image and it should hold on a wall without explanation. Up close it’s precise, sourced, and honest about what is missing. Nothing is invented to fill a gap. When a dataset covers 38% of its subject, the drawing says so.

The tonal reference is Arvo Pärt. Few elements, each one carrying weight, nothing added for effect. I understood that method properly in Estonia, which is also where most of the subjects come from. Eestiviz, the main series, is a long-form exploration of the country in around twenty pieces.

What I believe

• Data alone does not create understanding or adoption.
• Insight comes from how data is shaped and perceived.
• Aesthetics can accelerate clarity and decision-making.

Talks and Workshops

I bring the same conviction to stages and to rooms. In November 2025 I gave a mainstage talk at DataFest Tbilisi on the aesthetics of insight, and ran a ninety-minute workshop on how data art changes strategic decisions.

Keynotes, workshops and commissioned pieces are open to discussion, whether the subject is a country or a transformation programme. Commissioned work is confidential by default. The work itself is in the portfolio.

Practical

Based between Paris and Tallinn. Get in touch by email or on LinkedIn.