Nr. 78 - DATAMI 2018, MAT

45 x 45 x 45 cm: wood

The third RESONANCES exhibition (*) was given the name “DATATAMI", which was explained as a “Data Tatami: a place to find refuge and protect ourselves from the onslaught of big tech companies on our personal data, our freedom and identity". The architect in charge of the RESONANCES-III exhibition design claimed that in the same way the Tatami brought humanity into (Japanese) architecture, DATAMI had to bring humanity into the complex of Information Technology / Big Data / Artificial Intelligence / Virtual Reality. At the moment of RESONANCES-III, no culture, i.e. no broad narrative did exist that enveloped this complex of issues and with which a least a part of humanity was comfortably with; DATAMI was presented as an answer.

During initial discussions DATAMI was understood as a multi-dimensional tapestry in which all treads, human and non-human, individual and collective, real and virtual, were interwoven and connected. A representation of that initial understanding of what DATAMI could be is presented here. It is a black monolith opened towards the inside, only to find a smaller but similar monolith, again opened to a deeper inside. In this work, the proposed multi-dimensionality of DATAMI is replaced by a fractal with dimension between 2 and 3: a fractal as the section through the path of a chaotic system in multi-dimensional space.

 

(*) RESONANCES was a series of exhibitions organized by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission to try and communicate about an important issue. It mixed the languages of science, art and politics.

RESONANCES I (Milan, October 2015), FOOD, was about food. RESONANCES II (Milan, Oct. 2017), FAIR/FEAR, was about fairness. RESONANCES III (Brussels, Dec. 2019), DATAMI, was about big data and artificial intelligence.