Navigate themes: Understanding the Cloud | The Data Explosion | A New Era of Knowledge | I Am Data | We Are Data | What Data Can't Tell | Data for the Common Good | What Data Means To Us
Until a decade ago, the majority of the world’s data was produced by scientific, industrial, and administrative sources. This has since radically changed due to the explosion of mobile technologies and the popularisation of Web 2.0 social networks. Today, it is the everyday activity of millions of citizens, from searches on Google, to photos uploaded on Instagram, and accepted friend requests on Facebook, that is the main form of data production. This need to measure everything we do as a form of self-knowledge was once viewed as an extreme obsession, but is now an everyday practice. But are we really aware of what we are doing and what data we are giving away? Our actions produce digital footprints that capture our desires, fears, and hopes. They are also the source for a growing economy that uses “sentiment analysis” to determine our collective preferences in product purchases or even political decisions. The artworks on display showcase the ways in which artists have actively taken control of their data as an act of self-empowerment and to raise awareness of the way our data is used. |
