The Analog Art of Digital Dystopia (Medium)

by Beatrice Jeschek

#BIGDATAART #MUNICH by David Blitz

 

Why we need to trust big data opening a door to an individual creative mindset instead of dooming it.

This vernissage placed within a loft in Munich is an attempt to show how big data can be translated into art. I’m surprised by the level of non-digital craftsmanship. Mostly pictures at a wall, neon-illuminated objects in darkness and changing lights. I could touch it all if I wanted to. But can algorithms, analysis and some color condensed into physcial form actually transform big data into art?

A glowing network. Is this #bigdataart ?

Well, it can. That’s the short answer by digital natives like me. Who love the pretty-sophisticated-artsy way of treating digitalized personal information. Like when we text each other on Whatsapp, tweet across boundaries and share locations on Facebook.

That’s a carpet of about a month of mobile usage of FB (blue) & Whatsapp (red) — heavy to light users #bigdataart

Those of us — call us naive digital butterflies — don’t see first and foremost the NSA, like the German public sphere does at the moment. We do see data thieves drawn by gold or wrought patriotism. (So, stop watching us!) But we also see beauty in big data.

A jellyfish of data. It consists of the network of one German’s Facebook friends. A force-directed algorithm clusters people by their similarities. #bigdataart

It can even visualize where our information highways lie. And where there is a geo tweet desert.

European travel patterns by Twitter users sharing their locations based on 75.000 geo tweets (August 2011) #bigdataart by Eric Fisher

Thus big data, in form of old-fashioned analog art,actually manages to teach us a lesson about our digital society.

One step we can all take is to fight back the frightening dystopia of an all-knowing narrator of our private online lives. While accepting the open global stage that is social media.

At least, I know I am an actor in my public digital sphere. Aren’t you?

This opinion piece and photos was published on Medium, established by Twitter and Blogger co-founder Ev Williams, which aims to offer an online publishing platform 'optimised for quality, rather than popularity'.