Data natures: the politics and aesthetics of prediction

Authors

Su Ballard, University of WollongongFollow
Teodor E. Mitew, University of WollongongFollow
Jo Law, University of WollongongFollow
Joanna Stirling, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

107921

Publication Details

Ballard, S., Mitew, T. E., Law, J. & Stirling, J. "Data natures: the politics and aesthetics of prediction." 22nd International Symposium on Electronic Art ISEA 2016. United Kingdom: ISEA International, 2016. 386-390.

Abstract

The 1755 Lisbon earthquake was a cultural revolution that established an intimate relationship between data and nature. This panel examines how data has been increasingly perceived as an analogue of nature, capable of figuring its shape. The panel converges on this conflation by examining the politics and aesthetics of prediction, arguing that both data and nature are variable. Although, data cannot be used to make precise predictions—such is the nature of nature, which precludes such figuring—data is one currency through which we might predict environments. Yet, if data is not nature expressed systematically, then what is data? Data both makes sense and generates sense by conjuring patterns in amassed signals; prediction then is a way of guessing where the next point will fall in an identified pattern.