Media Arts on the Impact of Big Data on our Life
Curated by Oliver Gingrich
Speakers: Lumen Prize Winners Boredom Research, Stacey Pitsillides, Anna Troisi and Rachel Ara
Supported by EMERGE, Bournemouth University
The data volumes are exploding, more data has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of humanity, Next year, 1,7mb of data will be created every second by every human being on the planet. Our accumulated digital universe of data will grow to about 44 zettabytes of data worldwide. Critical theorists like Douglas Rushkoff and George Monbiot point to a deep crisis in human appreciation of self, how much technology exposes, invades - how much we are in control of, or controlled by data.
Contemporary media artists not only highlight the role of technology in this context, they also subvert ideas of agency, in responding, and reflecting on invasive uses of data. The blurring of lines between data and human thinking goes far beyond the sphere of art and has penetrated all parts of our lives. The artist’s role has always been to critically question these digital revolutions. FLUX: Invasive Data entices a discourse on art in the age of invasive data, investigating the penetration of big data across different spheres of our lives. FLUX invites Rachel Ara, Anna Troisi, Stacey Pitsillides and Boredom Research to discuss the role of data in their work - curated by Oliver Gingrich.
Contemporary media artists not only highlight the role of technology in this context, they also subvert ideas of agency, in responding, and reflecting on invasive uses of data. The blurring of lines between data and human thinking goes far beyond the sphere of art and has penetrated all parts of our lives. The artist’s role has always been to critically question these digital revolutions. FLUX: Invasive Data entices a discourse on art in the age of invasive data, investigating the penetration of big data across different spheres of our lives. FLUX invites Rachel Ara, Anna Troisi, Stacey Pitsillides and Boredom Research to discuss the role of data in their work - curated by Oliver Gingrich.
Images by Sophie le Roux
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About the speakers:
Rachel Ara
Rachel Ara is a conceptual and data artist who explores the relationships between gender, technology and systems of power. She graduated with a Fine Art degree from Goldsmiths College, London, where she won the prestigious Burston award. As a multi-disciplinary artist, she has a diverse skill set acquired from working 25 years in the tech industry to being a trained cabinet maker and combines them to make unique and often surprising installations and sculptures. The works are nonconformist with a socio-political edge that often incorporates humour and irony with feminist & queer concerns.
In 2016 she won the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 for This Much I’m Worth, the self-evaluating artwork. Pulling on her experiences as a computer system designer, the digital sculpture draws on data and complex algorithms to calculate its own value in real time. In 2018 she was featured on the cover of the FT Wealth for her monumental version of the sculpture “This Much I’m Worth” that she engineered and built incorporating over 80 pieces of neon and a homemade animation system made from recycled materials.
In 2018 Ara was made Artist in Residence at the V&A Museum in London responding to their data. That year she also showed at the Whitechapel Gallery (“This Much I’m Worth (UK Version)”), Barbican Centre (“American Beauty, a Trump L’Oeil”), Humber Street Gallery (“The Ancestors)” and the V&A (“Transubstantiation of Knowledge”).
This year she is showing works at the MMCA in Seoul (Vertiginous Data), MAK Vienna (Vienna Biennial 2019), V&A and completing her first public sculpture commission in London (colLAB).
https://www.2ra.co/
boredom research
boredomresearch is a collaboration between British artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith, their work benefits from a long lasting fascination in the mechanics of the natural world which they explore using contemporary technology. Their work transcends boundaries between art, science and society, with previous projects exploring topics including: the intricate biological signatures of neural activity, the frontiers of disease modeling and our cultural obsession with speed.
The art of boredomresearch opens channels for meaningful dialogue and engagement between public and scientific domains. For example, their work Real Snail Mail (the world’s first webmail service to use real snails) challenging our cultural obsession with speed, received worldwide attention, including: BBC, TIME Magazine, New Scientist and Discovery Channel Canada.
The artworks of boredomresearch are in collections around the world including the British Council and Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul. Recent international exhibitions/events include: Seeing Systems, ArtScience Museum, Singapore 2018; Artience, British Council exhibition at Daejeon Artist House, South Korea 2017; FEAT (Future Emerging Art & Technology) Exhibition, BOZAR Brussels 2017; ISEA, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Manizales 2017 & Vancouver 2015; Balance Unbalance, Manizales 2016; Bio-Art Exhibition, Gwacheon National Science Museum, Seoul 2015; TRANSITIO MX_06 Electronic Arts & Video Festival, Mexico City 2015; Soft Control: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious, Slovenia 2012 and Gateways, House of Electronic Arts, Basel 2012.
boredomresearch are Research Lecturers at the National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University. In 2015 they initiated BLAST (Bournemouth Lab of Art, Science & Technology) which celebrates, reinforces and nurtures world leading arts, science and technological interactions.
http://boredomresearch.net/wp/
ANNA TROISI
Anna Troisi is a digital artist, programmer, performer, experimental electronic musician, composer, instruments builder, data fetishist and fine artist. She has a background in computer science, music, computer music, neuroscience, and a PhD in nanotechnologies.
Anna’s research strand is part of the unit's well-established area of expertise addressing how gender inequalities and gendered social differences are constructed. Her major aim is to use the creative digital/sound arts to challenge stereotypes and provide positive alternatives. Her last performance OB-Scene is very part of a wider movement of women and technology named XenoFeminism (XF) that is emerging. It introduces the idea of techno-alienation and focuses around the concept of other/diverse desires, new forms of desiring, experiencing something other. Anna recently embraced this new form of feminism for the fluid, the non-human, the diverse. Her approach to cybernetics is intentionally very blurred: the anthropocentrism is substituted by the idea that human agency has some echoes in nonhuman nature and vice versa.
http://annatroisi.org
Stacey Pitsillides
Dr Stacey Pitsillides is a Lecturer in Design at the University of Greenwich. Her research considers how technology and design shift our understanding of death and bereavement. As part of this research she has curated events for public engagement that question legacy and aesthetics. Methodologically, the research inquires into how co-design can engage publics to speculatively explore their own narratives of mortality and legacy. Through a mix of ethnography, cultural probes and participatory design methods, she has collaborated with hospices, festivals, libraries and galleries to curate a range of interactive events aimed at specific communities e.g. tech innovators, educators and bereaved family members. She is also a public advocate for designing human-centred technologies with death in mind and has written broadly on the topic of death and digitality.
Personal Page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stacey_Pitsillides
Research Website: http://www.digitaldeath.eu/
Rachel Ara
Rachel Ara is a conceptual and data artist who explores the relationships between gender, technology and systems of power. She graduated with a Fine Art degree from Goldsmiths College, London, where she won the prestigious Burston award. As a multi-disciplinary artist, she has a diverse skill set acquired from working 25 years in the tech industry to being a trained cabinet maker and combines them to make unique and often surprising installations and sculptures. The works are nonconformist with a socio-political edge that often incorporates humour and irony with feminist & queer concerns.
In 2016 she won the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 for This Much I’m Worth, the self-evaluating artwork. Pulling on her experiences as a computer system designer, the digital sculpture draws on data and complex algorithms to calculate its own value in real time. In 2018 she was featured on the cover of the FT Wealth for her monumental version of the sculpture “This Much I’m Worth” that she engineered and built incorporating over 80 pieces of neon and a homemade animation system made from recycled materials.
In 2018 Ara was made Artist in Residence at the V&A Museum in London responding to their data. That year she also showed at the Whitechapel Gallery (“This Much I’m Worth (UK Version)”), Barbican Centre (“American Beauty, a Trump L’Oeil”), Humber Street Gallery (“The Ancestors)” and the V&A (“Transubstantiation of Knowledge”).
This year she is showing works at the MMCA in Seoul (Vertiginous Data), MAK Vienna (Vienna Biennial 2019), V&A and completing her first public sculpture commission in London (colLAB).
https://www.2ra.co/
boredom research
boredomresearch is a collaboration between British artists Vicky Isley and Paul Smith, their work benefits from a long lasting fascination in the mechanics of the natural world which they explore using contemporary technology. Their work transcends boundaries between art, science and society, with previous projects exploring topics including: the intricate biological signatures of neural activity, the frontiers of disease modeling and our cultural obsession with speed.
The art of boredomresearch opens channels for meaningful dialogue and engagement between public and scientific domains. For example, their work Real Snail Mail (the world’s first webmail service to use real snails) challenging our cultural obsession with speed, received worldwide attention, including: BBC, TIME Magazine, New Scientist and Discovery Channel Canada.
The artworks of boredomresearch are in collections around the world including the British Council and Borusan Contemporary Art Collection, Istanbul. Recent international exhibitions/events include: Seeing Systems, ArtScience Museum, Singapore 2018; Artience, British Council exhibition at Daejeon Artist House, South Korea 2017; FEAT (Future Emerging Art & Technology) Exhibition, BOZAR Brussels 2017; ISEA, International Symposium on Electronic Art, Manizales 2017 & Vancouver 2015; Balance Unbalance, Manizales 2016; Bio-Art Exhibition, Gwacheon National Science Museum, Seoul 2015; TRANSITIO MX_06 Electronic Arts & Video Festival, Mexico City 2015; Soft Control: Art, Science and the Technological Unconscious, Slovenia 2012 and Gateways, House of Electronic Arts, Basel 2012.
boredomresearch are Research Lecturers at the National Centre for Computer Animation, Bournemouth University. In 2015 they initiated BLAST (Bournemouth Lab of Art, Science & Technology) which celebrates, reinforces and nurtures world leading arts, science and technological interactions.
http://boredomresearch.net/wp/
ANNA TROISI
Anna Troisi is a digital artist, programmer, performer, experimental electronic musician, composer, instruments builder, data fetishist and fine artist. She has a background in computer science, music, computer music, neuroscience, and a PhD in nanotechnologies.
Anna’s research strand is part of the unit's well-established area of expertise addressing how gender inequalities and gendered social differences are constructed. Her major aim is to use the creative digital/sound arts to challenge stereotypes and provide positive alternatives. Her last performance OB-Scene is very part of a wider movement of women and technology named XenoFeminism (XF) that is emerging. It introduces the idea of techno-alienation and focuses around the concept of other/diverse desires, new forms of desiring, experiencing something other. Anna recently embraced this new form of feminism for the fluid, the non-human, the diverse. Her approach to cybernetics is intentionally very blurred: the anthropocentrism is substituted by the idea that human agency has some echoes in nonhuman nature and vice versa.
http://annatroisi.org
Stacey Pitsillides
Dr Stacey Pitsillides is a Lecturer in Design at the University of Greenwich. Her research considers how technology and design shift our understanding of death and bereavement. As part of this research she has curated events for public engagement that question legacy and aesthetics. Methodologically, the research inquires into how co-design can engage publics to speculatively explore their own narratives of mortality and legacy. Through a mix of ethnography, cultural probes and participatory design methods, she has collaborated with hospices, festivals, libraries and galleries to curate a range of interactive events aimed at specific communities e.g. tech innovators, educators and bereaved family members. She is also a public advocate for designing human-centred technologies with death in mind and has written broadly on the topic of death and digitality.
Personal Page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stacey_Pitsillides
Research Website: http://www.digitaldeath.eu/
