CURATORIAL > DECODE

<DECODE> Artists Policing Data

Curated by Jayanthi Moorthy and Daria Dorosh

About

Artists in <Decode> Artists Policing Data respond to data in forms that move beyond graphs and charts. They integrate data into their artwork in provoking, beautiful, and sensorial ways. This process demonstrates how data is gathered and converted into new patterns that they use to understand and interpret the world. When the goal of data collection is for personal use, it offers a rich pool of possibilities for making new connections.

Artists have always been drawn to data, whether scientific, cultural, social, or political. Not unlike investigators and scientists, they track large amounts of information to bring attention to various aspects of the world. They transform them into an aesthetic form that can be seen, felt, and touched. They are drawn to the complexity of a modern world, which ranges from ecological and cultural issues to political surveillance to a quest for spiritual insight.

<Decode> Artists Policing Data looks at art as more than the end product and process. Seen together, these works give insight into the new forms of social, economic, and political structures we live in. In a sense, the artist’s life, which is an ongoing inquiry into the world, is the artwork. The diverse works have been presented in various digital thematic frameworks of data namely: data as self-surveillance, spiritual as data, textile as data, natural environment as data, and disappearing data.

Exhibit Catalogue

Press Release

Artists' Work

The grid forms an underlying structure in many of the works, sometimes as a way to present data, and sometimes as a collection of individual elements held together by a specific idea, container, or repetitive action. One can define the grid as an arrangement of discrete units of information in any medium that shows a pattern through repetition.

The grid may contain information as diverse as two-dimensional mathematical patterns generated by cellular automata (Wolfram), climate and nature patterns (Gellis, Nalls, Marzec), psychological patterns of exploitation (Nalls, Glow, Marzec), patterns of cultural migration and disappearance (Glow, Elahi, Frick), spiritual self-awareness (Pachner, Moorthy), self-surveillance and record keeping (Kalina, Elahi, Gellis, Huth), relationship mapping (Frick, Glow), participatory communal collection of memories, fears, or cultural meaning (Marzec, Moorthy, Huth), comparison of information embedded in textile and fashion (Dorosh, Elahi, Glow), word patterns (Huth, Moorthy), time patterns (Elahi, Kalina, Huth, Glow) and information that has lost its original intention and has been up-cycled to the level of art (Dorosh, Huth).

Meet The Artists

Artworks In The Show

Beatrice Glow

Beatrice Glow is an interdisciplinary artist and multisensory storyteller, who borrows from anthropology, ethnography, botany, and archeology to awaken latent imaginaries. Her research-based process allows her to co-labor with scholars, scientists, and community stakeholders to assemble surviving fragments in service of public history. Ms. Glow leverages sculptural installations, experiential technology collaborations, olfactory art, participatory performances, and publishing to shift dominant narratives. Standing between diaspora and indigeneity, she navigates the oceanic, cultural, and trade circulations between Asia, the Americas, and Europe. She borrows the transporting power of smell to retain evaporating memory and fight erasure.

Gayil Nalls

Gayil Nalls' work often engages with the sensory, emotional, and psychological properties determined or defined in some way by olfaction. The artworks involve the interplay of data, facts, historical and cultural information, and memory.

The Avon Suite photographic series explores aspects of American society by staging and reconfiguring the subjects of vintage Avon decanters, questioning both the iconography and the synthetic fragrances they originally contained. By decoding the symbols, she has situated them in a new aesthetic, social, and philosophical context which invites the viewer to focus on the powerful unconscious impact that corporations, insofar as they mold and redefine citizens as consumers, have on our identities as individuals.

Hasan Elahi

Elahi’s self-surveillance work is often described as “hiding in plain sight” and plays with the concept of camouflage. In ERDL+, thirteen panels of camouflage patterns used by the US military are displayed side by side as a timeline showing the transition from the analog to the digital, from 1948 to the present. The video Continuum is placed next to ERDL+ depicting thousands of images scrolling side by side in seven panels mimicking the pattern of the Emergency Broadcasting System, which was intended to warn the public in case of a nuclear attack during the Cold War.

www.elahi.umd.edu | Instagram: @hasanelahi

Laurie Frick

Ms Frick says that we worry about data captured about us… our beloved phone tracks our location, apps capture intimate personal details, our search, shopping…even our kindle knows how fast we read. Soon, these will not concern us as much as the algorithms that detect our relationships and how people affect us.

Human interaction feels complicated, but the intricacies of friends are ripe for machine learning. and Ms. Frick predicts that we will casually use the data we know about us and the people around us to manipulate our behavior, our body chemistry, and our mood. The surprise is that it will be easy. It will start with how people affect us. Are they toxic or a vitamin?

POLICING DATA?

Does data collection have to be so one-sided, I don’t imagine an outside force effectively policing data. Instead, couldn’t we have more access, to see the algorithms that predict our behavior and shade our experience online? It’s incredibly opaque, companies track intricate details about us, and it’s a big secret. Ms. Frick ruminates that if our data is so valuable, why don’t we get to see it? If we are getting tracked, we should get access to it. She says, "I want my data. Not the simple stuff I can download, but what the algorithms predict about me. It could be 2-way. If you track me I get access. I want my data, take back your data."

Geof Huth

Geof Huth is drawn to words because they are human and because they are data. As a human, his world and imagination focus on information. As a professional, his work requires me to manage the records of a large and sprawling government bureaucracy. As an artist, his worth derives from his interest in information, how information systems fall apart, and how the signal from a message can be muffled, fragmented, and even lost.

The major series Mr. Huth is working on is Third Life. The title comes from a concept in archives: records have a first life supporting the work of an organization, but those saved for their value beyond that work have a second life as archives. In this series of works, these archival documents had been stored in hot and dry storage conditions for over a century, so they had become brittle and fragments had flaked off them. Mr. Huth collects those small fragments and places them within bottles and upon stones and other found objects. This project brings these discarded pieces of the world (the paper fragments and the carriers of these) and recontextualizes the pieces, not to recreate the past, but to show how the past and language itself degrade over time, become less and less knowable—just as these artworks will continue to decay and become unreadable.

Sandy Gellis

"As in one of her own patient indexes of ecological change, the tides of taste have finally lapped up over Gellis’ work. Art concerned with environmental issues exists in ever greater profusion, by turns documentary, mournful, cynical, and fiercely activist. Gellis’ sculpture is none of these. Though it comes from the materials of which our planet is made, and though it engages our deepest interest in the literal bedrock of biological life, Gellis’ work is neither meliorative nor despairing. The principles that have sustained it for 35 years originate in Process art, not partisan politics. Nor does it aim for a casual explanation of the physical fix we find ourselves in. Instead, her work observes, with the most delicate, sidelong perspectives, our reciprocal relationship with the fundamental stuff of the world: earth, water, air.”

--Essay excerpt from, Projects: Earth, Air and Water Studies/ Sandy Gellis by Nancy Princenthal 1992

Ann Pachner

"The use of the word spirituality can make it sound like it is something Other and someplace else". Ann Pachner's understanding is that spirituality is a way of being in this world. That spiritual practices refine the practitioner and allow through this refinement access to a broader consciousness and this consciousness allows a way of being in the everyday world and being able to perceive subtler aspects of what is.

Repetition is a fundamental ordering mechanism in nature, music, art, and the human body itself. Data are bits of repeated facts or literal information that are used to prove a position. Music, art, and nature go beyond the literal to suggest or point to feelings, states, and vitality in all its ambiguity and beauty.

The repetition experienced in Ms. Pachner's work in the repeated fluting of carved wooden form or the repeated arabesque or serpentine lines that are translated from pencil lines on paper, manipulated digitally, transcend their likeness, and become an aliveness.

Noah Kalina

The emergence of technological advances in digital photography, along with a growing interest in the subtleties of aging, inspired Noah Kalina to take a photograph of himself every day for the rest of his life.

Everyday is a self-portrait project that started on January 11th, 2000. In June 2006 the six-and-a-half-year version of the “everyday” was uploaded to YouTube. It quickly became a “viral” video receiving millions of views within the first month (it currently has over 26 million views). It is considered important in early Youtube history. It inspired countless similar projects and was even parodied by the television show The Simpson. William A. Ewing, director of the Musée de l’Elysée said in the New York Times “Noah’s video represents a phenomenal amplification not just in what he produced and how he did it, but how many people the piece touched in such a short period of time. There is nothing comparable in the history of photography.”

Amelia Marzec

"A number of years ago I lost all of the hearing in one of my ears due to a tumor. As I focused on the reality of daily communication failure in my own life, I began to pay more attention to the physical objects that make up our telecommunications infrastructure: our phones, our Internet, our radios, and other devices. I began building a series of objects to avert possible future disasters of communication in our society."Ms. Marzec builds from pieces of salvaged materials including consumer electronics. They question our current methods of manufacturing and broadcasting, by exploring how we can stay connected despite any rift in the functionality of our systems. The objects become increasingly story-driven as participants interact with the work. They question the politics of ownership over our communications infrastructure and draw attention to the cost of our participation in it.

The Weather Center for the Apocalypse, while it does collect weather readings for the micro-climate it is situated in, also provides a place for people to share news by word-of-mouth. The data that is collected are the stories informing the communities we live in. In an era of questionable news sources online, do we trust information coming from our own neighbors? Is it possible to create connections and strengthen our communities offline, for the times we may really need it?

Daria Dorosh

Daria Dorosh is interested in how digital technology is redefining art, fashion, and the body.

She thinks aloud, "If art in the analog past was contingent on location, what kind of art would artists make for a datafied mobile future that has a different relationship to place? Fashion communicated status and desire until the cell phone became the carrier of all information, with no wardrobe required. How will fashion be redefined as a mixed reality that is both material and immaterial?" These are the basic questions Ms. Dorosh investigates in three of her works in <Decode> Artists Policing Data.

In one of her works Datafied, Ms. Dorosh has juxtaposed 3 sets of textile neckwear on sculptural watercolor supports with 6 digital prints of the same work interpreted by an iPad camera. When the textile neckwear is worn, the body becomes a mobile site for art while the watercolor occupies the wall. In making analog art Ms. Dorosh enters into a complexity loop in which the outcome is not programmed. In the Shred series of digital prints, a surprising reality shows up that is both representational and abstract. Pixels have been added in places by the code when I didn’t follow the rules built into the camera.

Jayanthi Moorthy

The underlying theme of Jayanthi Moorthy's work is a dialogue with the self and the community about contemporary culture and the struggles of navigating through the physical and metaphysical worlds. Ms. Moorthy's work is informed by Eastern thought, advances in learning and cognitive sciences, and Indian cultural practices like yoga and Rangoli/ Kolam (ephemeral drawings on the floor).

For the exhibit <Decode> Artists Policing Data, Ms. Moorthy draws parallels between the spiritual and the digital. Hindu dharma believes that the divine spirit pervades all things around us, including the air, water, trees and animals. When matter dies, the spirit within moves on and is transformed into something else. It is also a common Hindus believe that every single thought and action influences the universe around us.

Controlled Mind is a participatory installation where audience completes the installation by contributing their thoughts. They are asked to share their thoughts in 3-5 words on a piece of a paper which they fold and drop into a ‘hundi’, a ritualistic vessel which here represents the social media ecosystem of today. These thoughts are projected as animated words churning in and out ultimately manifesting in a physical form on the floor.

Exhibit Programs

During the course of the exhibit, there were a number of exhibit programs for audiences to look deeply into the work or have opportunities to look at it from different angles. There were panel discussions, artist performances, talks/lectures, and creative workshops.

BIG CONVERSATIONS: Words & Consequences in a Datafied Culture

Most people sign the 'I agree’ requirement that comes up to be able to participate on the Internet. What are the consequences? Do we know what we are consenting to? Is it a fair exchange? Artists are free to work with words in any way they like in their art. For lawyers, wrongly used words can become a million-dollar mistake. On the internet, social media users and artists face attacks when they use words to post an idea or opinion. Is communication that is disembodied from a personal voice, gesture, and presence a trigger for anger and misunderstanding?

Speakers: Srinivas Kaushik, Jose Marinez, Geof Huth

Moderator: Daria Dorosh

BIG CONVERSATIONS:
Data vs. Information: Art vs. Science

When raw facts and figures like data are cohesively connected they become information that is knowledgeable. When scientific facts are combined with artistic expressions they stir stronger feelings of connection. What if artists' process was more defined and more scientific, would this lead them to contribute more to startling discoveries?

Speakers: Maria Paola Sutto (Core member, Urban Design Lab, Columbia University), Alyssa Wise (Director, NYU Learning Analytics Research Network (LEARN), Laurie Frick (artist), Amelia Marzec (artist)

Moderators: Jayanthi Moorthy (artist), Gayil Nalls (artist)

MUSIC WORKSHOP

The Music of Math: Wolfram Tones

John Kiehl, co-owner of Soundtrack Recording Studios, will lead a hands-on workshop on the powerful set theory and pattern-matching capabilities in Mathematica to produce customized music.

ART PERFORMANCE:
Weather Center for the Apocalypse

Weather Center for the Apocalypse is alert to an uncertain future. It is a sculptural installation by artist Amelia Marzec that incorporates new media, performance, and participation. It predicts changes in our

environment and culture that could affect the autonomy of citizens in the event of disaster.

ART WORKSHOP:
Policing and mapping your neighborhood

An immersive art workshop for 6-9
yr olds. Kids will learn to police and understand their neighborhood using various data sources like traditional maps, GPS, and human connections.

Artworkshop will be led by JAYANTHI
MOORTHY: Artist-Curator, Art Educator and Learning Designer

ART WORKSHOP

Protest Art--Responsing to your resistence

An immersive art workshop for 9-12
yr olds. Kids here will understand civil rights, and their inner resistances and channel that into something meaningful for themselves and their communities.

Artworkshop will be led by JAYANTHIMOORTHY: Artist-Curator, Art Educator and Learning Designer