12/04/2018
An excerpt from the Curatorial Statement:
Artists have always been drawn to data, whether scientific, cultural, social or political. Not unlike investigators and scientists, they track large amounts of information to bring attention to various aspects of the world. They transform them into an aesthetic form, that can be seen, felt and touched. They are drawn to the complexity in a modern world, which ranges from ecological and cultural issues to political surveillance to a quest for spiritual insight.
Artists in Artists Policing Data respond to data in forms that move beyond graphs and charts. They integrate data into their artwork in provoking, and sensorial ways, this process demonstrates that data patterns can be decoded and converted into other patterns that are useful in art. When the goal of data collection is for personal use, it offers a rich pool of possibilities for making new connections.
THE ARTWORKS
The grid forms an underlying structure in many of the works, sometimes as a way to present data, and sometimes as a collection of individual elements held together by a specific idea, container, or repetitive action. One can define the grid as an arrangement of discrete units of information in any medium that shows a pattern through repetition.
The grid may contain information as diverse as two-dimensional mathematical patterns generated by cellular automata (Wolfram), climate and nature patterns (Gellis, Nalls, Marzec), psychological patterns of exploitation (Nalls, Glow, Marzec), patterns of cultural migration and disappearance (Glow, Elahi, Frick), spiritual self awareness (Pachner, Moorthy), self surveillance and record keeping (Kalina, Elahi, Gellis, Huth), relationship mapping (Frick, Glow), participatory communal collection of memories, fears, or cultural meaning (Marzec, Moorthy, Huth), comparison of information embedded in textile and fashion (Dorosh, Elahi, Glow), word patterns (Huth, Moorthy), time patterns (Elahi, Kalina, Huth, Glow) and information that has lost its original intention and has been up-cycled to the level of art (Dorosh, Huth).
