We can look at data as a gene pool — a set of instructions that define the resultant shape and form, giving an object a kind of personality trait.
For instance, in this example the data is making the cube seemingly breathe at a certain rate. Faster breathing could mean the data is more relevant, and therefore creating a feeling that there’s more urgency needed to explore this dataset — “look over here, I’m more important”. Colour and shape would also emphasise these points.
On being attracted to a certain form it might be that you could then explore a little further, but without committing too much — you just want to know a little more about this thing that has grabbed your attention. So on rotating the object parts of the data spill-out from within, in this case typographically revealing some of the numbers, but this could easily be some actual headlines or summaries about the data.
Sound is then added on top of these visuals to further put forward this idea of data as personality.