In my previous blog post, I was writing slightly about data, but how can we present it with the help of art and art installations.
During today’s class, we were introduced to a few art projects from designers that had implemented data into art projects, and how the data can be portrayed in a creative way that is also subtle and beautiful. This is a fairly new and innovative way to present data while adding a visual aesthetic to it, in the form of an installation.
Whenever we think of data, we think of numbers and graphs, and not a sculpture, or an art installation. Whenever we look at art, we never expect to gather much information from it, which makes it new and refreshing, as well as educational.
But how do they gather this data?
Everything we do online is logged one way or another, to a larger server that stores it, it works the same with messages we send through text and shows we want on Netflix. Big Data, as they refer to it, is a combination of structured, semistructured and unstructured data that are collected and is used to mine information that can be applied to machine learning and predictive modelling, and much more.
Netflix, for example, gathers data from everything we do in their application, and we can actually access it ourselves if we ask for it! But this data is used for them to tailor our experience for us to use the service more, aka, an algorithm.
With the help of the data that’s being mined, we can use it for better, or for worse, it entirely depends on who can access it. But because of our constant use of the internet, it’s being logged in various ways, for people to use in research, or in this case, art installations.
Here are a few Designers/Design projects that were brought up in class today.
Previous Brendan Dawes research: I chose to apply this research here as well since I found him to be very interesting.
eCLOUD:
eCLOUD is a dynamic sculpture that was installed in the San José International Airport, in collaboration with Aaron Koblin, Dan Goods and Nik Hafermaas. The sculpture is an interactive art installation, that displays the real-time data of the ongoing weather from around the world with the help of data, and is made out of hundreds of polycarbonate tiles that can fade from opaque to transparent.
This is a beautiful and unique way to display data, especially in an airport, which is arguably one of the most suitable places for this to be.
Klarna Data Wall:
In 2014, Klarna had an art installation done in their headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, Where in the lobby of the building, there were several screens, taking up a big portion of the wall, showing real-time data from their users.
The wall itself showcases the general spending habits of their users, where they’re located and the volume of transactions throughout their company with fluid and well-composed animations. Because this showing real-time statistics, the art installation constantly changes and updates, making it public for people to see Klarna’s business activity.
It is interesting to see how art transforms throughout the years and how information is applied to it in various ways to create more of an educational touch to it or an emotional bond with the viewer. This is the future of art installations, and I can’t wait to see what else the future has to offer.
Thank you