Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating exhibition at Somerset House looking at the effects of the current explosion in data and the effects it is having on society, culture and politics. I will admit I thought this would be quite dry but I’d seen good reviews and was intrigued partly because my work involves data and how you can get different data to work together. The show presented complex ideas in a really imaginative way, for example there was a section on the cloud explaining what it was and pointing out it isn’t as ethereal as it sounds. It showed the data centres involved as postcards of the buildings hanging over a map of the world. I was fascinating by the section that talked about how the internet has given us the tools to record the minutia of our lives which made me realise how much I record online, this blog just being one example! I found myself fighting the urge to look up some of the interesting apps it mentioned as part of the point was that this isn’t necessarily a good thing. ...

Small exhibition at Tate Britain which asked four emerging artist to look at the effects of the internet by comparing attempts to quantify the wealth of data to tangible objects. I loved Eloise Hawse’s film of her father being scanned alongside the animation it produces. It was amusing because he was scanned fully dressed and she showed it with a 3D print out of his shoes. It was an interesting intense but detached view of someone she loves, or that’s how I read it. I also liked Charlotte Prodger’s full sized print of the x-ray of a lorry at customs! Yurl Pattison presented a film of a formed defence centre which is now used as a datacentre. It was shown imagined online posting from a 2030 time traveller. I didn’t really understand Katina Palmer’s Island of Portland with three photos and an audio story. It was interesting but I didn’t see how it fit the brief.