Doing Data
2022
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Doing Data is a series of experimental sculptures which describe creative practice as a data-driven process, using one as a way of thinking about the other. Data is an abstraction. Categories are created to classify it, to make sense of it. These categories, in turn, cause gaps and outliers which are seen as problems to correct, or to be erased. Through my making project I wanted to reframe gaps as space for reconfiguration and new approaches.
I made the sculptures from fragments, things labelled ‘offcuts and remnants’ in the database of all of the things in my studio. I allocated the things to groups using a randomiser. My making strategies were devised from ways of rethinking gaps – add something, recognise divergence, disassemble and adjust.
Each sculpture is accompanied by a datasheet that describes materials and strategies used, and unforeseen elements which inevitably find their way in. This offers a kind of transparency, whilst the supports for the works point to an underlying question of my project: should the thing conform to the structure, or should the structure adapt to the thing?
My approaches draw from observations about the way data is (often incorrectly) perceived as objective and infallible, informed by my experiences working as a data analyst.
I made this work in collaboration with The University of Edinburgh’s Creative Informatics ‘Creative Horizons’ project. It was exhibited at Inspace, Edinburgh, in 'There be Dragons', curated by Mark Daniels.