The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies

The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies

1 July - 18 September 2021

The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies brings together artists and designers to show how creative applications of data technology are crucial for a vital, inclusive and  sustainable future, all central concerns in our contemporary lives. The exhibition includes works that explore data both critically and playfully to reflect on climate change, location data, and data legacies and explore new possibilities for interacting with empathy from remote locations, learning about Indigenous cultural knowledges and reflecting on everyday habits that secure data privacy.

Some of the ways that artists and designers explore and interpret the challenges of climate data are seen in the shell necklaces by Palawa artist Lola Greeno, and the repurposing of the predictive capacities of data to prompt reflection and behavioural change by design researchers Mitchell Whitelaw and Geoff Hinchcliffe. These works demonstrate how  contemporary creative practices redefine data to shape cultural narratives about data.

Under the theme of location data, artists and designers explore how intersubjective meanings can develop through shared experiences, such as in the sonified armchairs by Yulia Brazauskayte, and the living maps that mark the placenames of massacre sites across Australia visualised by Judy Watson. A major aspect of this exhibition is also the exploration of data legacies through representations of historical, archival data. Warraba Weatherall reminds us that the distortion of data and the warehousing of cultural materials in  institutional archives challenges the social imaginary of data as a medium of neutral objectivity, while Silvio Carta simulates a dystopian futurescape of AI.

Together these works repurpose data to tell stories about the radical imaginary—the alternatives that diverge from and contradict the received truths and norms of the social imaginary—and open up data as a medium for creative exploration.

Artists and Designers: Robert Andrew; Yulia Brazauskayte; Silvio Carta; Andrew Gall; Interaction Research Studio; Lola Greeno; Benedikt Groß, Stephan Bogner & Herwig Scherabon; Geoff Hinchcliffe & Mitchell Whitelaw; Luke Jaaniste; Jenna Lee; Ian McArthur; Joana Moll; Stanislava Pinchuk; Patrick Pound; Aidan Rowlingson; Judy Watson;
Warraba Weatherall; Tali Weinberg; and Mitchell Whitelaw.

Curatorium: Associate Professor Katherine Moline, University of New South Wales; Angela Goddard, Griffith University Art Museum; Amanda Hayman & Troy Casey (Blaklash Creative); and Dr Beck Davis, Australian National University.

This exhibition was conceived on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal, Gadigal, Dharug, Gundungurra, Yuggara and Turrbal peoples. The curators acknowledge the traditional  custodians of these lands, pay respect to their Elders, past and present, and extend that respect to other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Downloadable exhibition labels

Purchase the publication