Hannah, your image of the data thugger and Angela your images of people too, made me think of how you could portray the emotion of your research as an atmosphere, in a more abstract way. I was thinking about the bookcover on affect called the Hundreds by Lauren Berlant and Kathleen Stewart.
The cover is made by an artist who happens to be a pupeteer and animator, it's a still from an installation, Rather than depict the number "hundreds" the cover captures a mood or an atmosphere. See Here: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Hundreds.html?id=j22DDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false