Sara Diamond is ‘a visualization, wearable technology and mobile media researcher, artist and designer’ who writes:
Aesthetics structure experiences in formal perceptual ways and provide interpretive tools, at times constructing meaning. Given that sensory expression — most often visual, sometimes sonic or tactile — is the only means to perceive many contemporary data sets, aesthetics are fundamental, not additive, to the emerging field of Data Visualization.
From Lenticular Galaxies: The Polyvalent Aesthetics of Data Visualization (at Ctheory.net)