DATA RELATIONS

Words by Jasmine Penman

Equal parts authoritative and menacing, Blas’s troll shines a light on the ways in which raw data can be manipulated to construct present and future realities.

Hong Kong-born artist, researcher, and coder Winnie Soon also grapples with the question of digital authoritarianism in her practice. In her works Unerasable characters I-III, we see the politics of censorship play out in the context of Weibo, China’s largest social media platform. Based on real-world datasets of censored Weibo posts, these three works give visual constitution to the dark realities of tech-based censorship in China.

As human data continues to be weaponised by big tech and authoritarian governments around the world, how can we take back control? Is it even possible to do so? New York-based artists Tega Brain and Sam Lavigne seem to think it is.

In Synthetic messenger, we see Brain and Lavigne turn clickbait logic on its head by using it to artificially inflate demand for climate change reporting. For Brain and Lavigne, this is just one example of how we, as stakeholders in the global data economy, can reclaim some agency in how our data is used and presented. The work appears to us in the exhibition as a 20-channel video installation, in which we see a bot sweep the internet for news articles on climate change.

“The bots attempt to synthesise human-like data in order to amplify climate reporting,” says Brain and Lavigne. “And as they click on the ads running alongside articles, the value of that article would therefore theoretically increase and the story would become shared in more places online.”

Synthetic messenger draws attention to the ever-expanding capabilities of AI to profoundly steer public discourse and generate real-life outcomes. It’s a playful work, but it’s also unmistakably provocative.

Data Relations presents us with an opportunity to critically reflect on one of the most fundamental features of contemporary life. And as we move into a new era of technology dominated by artificial intelligence and Web 3.0, the question of how we interact with data has become more salient than ever.

Where’s the pen? Where’s the line? Maisie Peters wants to sign up (sign up) to be a fully-fledged Australian and our arms are wide open to welcome the British songbird.