DATA WRANGLERS

How does data influence daily life and how do we make sense of it? What data is visible to the community and how does it “contribute” to social life? How do artists and designers make meaning within an increasingly complex landscape of “preprogrammed” data capture and control? Students and staff from the Information Experience Design (IED), Royal College of Art have been exploring these issues through a series of workshops titled Data Wranglers.

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A pop-up exhibition of work exploring data and everyday life by students from the Information Experience Design (IED) programme.

Joanne Harik & Kelly Spanou presents their project HEAR.A40

Maximo Recio & Sam Phong Nguyen demonstrated their artefact: Chronorium

Yasmeen Sabri explained her installation’s concept : human vs robot

Hayden Anyasi & Jan Petryek presents their idea about Data Pollution

The Event :

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Chronorium

Maximo Recio & Sam Phong Nguyen

Chronorium is an artefact which concentrates on recording data of human behaviour within a tangible time and space. The installation focuses on the link between the perception of time and the perception of motion.

For the purpose of stimulating a Specious present, Chronorium invites the audiences to enter a space where the the passing of time is visualised through a mechanical system. However, the purpose of this system doesn’t stop here. Within this zone, where the intuition of time is heightened, human reactions to the duration of the indefinite and continuous flow of time are observed. Subconsciously, human body remains in motion over time even when they are trying to retain their position. These movement might occurs even when the human brain doesn’t really process the information to trigger such task.

By implementing a series of conductive thread, processed by micro-computer controllers and physically controlled by a series of different motors, Chronorium illustrates the pattern of human subconscious movement within a duration of time.  The data is drawing directly on the surface of a rotating table, which symbolises the motion of the fourth dimension.

Inspired by the science of Dendrochronology, or tree ring dating, we intended to create a minimal but informative manifestation of data where the audience’s perception of time and motion are visualised. Other datas which manifested within the Chronorium is the amount of time people spent within the space, how long would they sit down and engage with the artwork.

Ambiguously, Chronorium is not a measuring device nor a data-driven installation , but a stimulated reality, where another person’s perception of time can be experienced by others. It’s an experiments which attempts to look into the mystery of human brain, of questioning one’s perception of time and motion

https://vimeo.com/127016090

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HEAR.A40

Joanne Harik & Kelly Spanou

The space is not only what is built, but comprises of both material and immaterial aspects. The atmosphere, the smells, the sounds and the possibility of interaction between humans all constitute characteristics of space, forming our spatial experience and determining our daily life in the city.

HEAR.A40 investigates how one experiences the city beyond the physical, focusing on the sonic environment. Humans have gotten used to sounds in the city, therefore blocking them out and acknowledging them as background noises.  But by consciously paying attention to these sounds, one begins to perceive the city as an orchestra: Sounds of people, transportation, music, nature are some of the ‘instruments’ that constitute it, and affect our perception of space.

Inspired by alchemy, HEAR.A40 is a sound experiment that explores the contrast between the satellite or machine’s perspective on noise levels which it reduced to an intensity, and that of the human gaze which has the ability to focus on the quality of these noises and quantify them according to what he or she hears.

Both types of data are processed by the installation: It highlights the subjectivity of the human’s ear through the use sand, using colors to differentiate between human, traffic and music noises, and formulates the machine’s noise level, reduced to a decibel number, through the size of each three-colored blocks. The result of data collected during six time slots from 10am till 10pm is mapped out through the formation of a sound pattern, representing what a day in Oxford Circus sounds like, standing on Oxford Street numbered A40

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Primitive Futures

Jan Petryek & Hayden Anyasi

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Yasmeen Sabri & Feng Pei

Robot vs Artist

The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.”

This experiment is mean to test the notion behind the Turing test. More importantly, we see how humans and robots receive and process information (data) differently. I would like to collect data on what the price and value is in the opinion of the audience.

In this work, I will also be questioning how people value and price work of art, as well as the data around that. The project will consist of two elements. The first one is a performance, where an artist (Alisha Mir) and drawing robot, will sit and draw from the same set of instructions. Later the works of art will be hung, and the audience will be asked to price the works, before and after they learn who the creator is, showing how the data consistently changes according to new information you receive and the past knowledge of any topic (in this case art) affects the outcome.

This piece observes how humans and robots perceive and process information differently, as well as how different factors affect the outcome. I’m also interested in how humans would price (value) a work of art depending on the process and origin.