Data is but a shadow cast from life, yet it can yield a record of the past and shine the light of experience onto the future. Data brings us knowledge from beyond where our senses can reach, because it makes things accessible that are too fast, too far, or too fine for us to see. But it is abstract, pulled away from experience, so we have to bring it to life again. We sometimes use grids, colors and lines, but more often we use our hands to show how big the fish, which way the grill, and how tasty the meal. With our gestures, we are all data artists.
Much of data art is about manifesting abstract data as experiences we can feel with visual, sculptural or musical gestures. The Metered Tide and Water Bell manifest sea water levels as music. Ice Core Walk manifests climate data stored in the Vostok Ice Core through walking, music and narratives. Quantopia and Network Paradox manifest the myriad different ways in which networks can connect to define emergent ways of life. Niemeyer's work includes collaborations across disciplines and across media from gravure etchings to VR, always with an eye for the poetic foundations of technical protocols. Niemeyer installs data manifestations in museums and galleries, but also in public places like city skylines, nightclubs, trains, parks and wilderness.
But as data artists we can also look at data as such. We creatively and freely explore all that data can be, its full potential as resource or risk, beyond the practical constraints of science, technology and business. What can data do? Whom does it serve, and at whose expense? What will change and how? Check out the artwork links for selected recent projects, the store for works you can acquire, and the archive for a collection of older projects.