In conjunction with Electronic SuperHighway, another major gallery space in London has created and exhibition highlighting our obsession and dependance with technology and data. Big Bang Data in the Embankment Galleries of Somerset House. This subterranean setting braces us for an exploration into the half invisible networks of data and information that modern society has conceded to depend upon.
Creating an exhibition of ‘data’ results in lots of visualisation of this data through infographics and various other clever representations that rely on interactivity or projection mapping. The exhibition is true to its name in that it is presenting enormous amounts of indication and data, all collected via various sources but many heavily embedded within the internet. Trying to process and understand that information takes a while. Even when beautifully and creatively displayed. Yet despite this innovation we are inundated with such vast quantities of data at each and every step of the exhibition that it is hard to comprehend everything that is going on.
The nature of the internet, all consuming network of information, is reflected within the exhibition. There are various works commissioned or exhibited by artists, investigative journalists, computer scientists and academics.All of which is culminating in privacy and surveillance, artificial intelligence or even trends in selfies. Highlighting either the magic or unease of this complex data that we are in constant connection with.
Unlike Electronic Superhighway, this exhibition feels very separated from the carefully curated and aesthetically focused work that sat in the Whitechapel Gallery. The work being displayed has no level of simplicity. The data, what ever it may be is engrained into every piece of work. The the work is filled with colour or numbers or information that is almost irritating to the eye. In some sense there is a certain amount of admiration for this. These sets of data are so vast that they are reflected in such as way. Our mind cannot comprehend the tasks that our digital world is undertaking. And therefore when we come into contact with this data we should expect some sort of challenge.
Every piece of work appears filled with complex patterns, textures and compositions or have undertones that breathe complexity. That said it does give an audience a great amount of content to immerse themselves within.Yet much of the work doesn't do much to challenge the viewer especially in an artistic context, but strives to inform the audience instead. It provides this data and creates a platform for it to be understood. Large scale projections of London’s twitter trends being mapped or the factual information of how this data is transported across the world through underwater fibre optics is interesting but very straight to the point. There are a few pieces within the exhibition that are clearly defined. But even work like James Bridle’s Hologram just appears a practical model for the technology he is utilising. Yet in the surroundings of the Whitechapel the same work became much more divisive and has a slightly more engaging context.
The same thing happens when confronted with Tino Arnall’s film ‘Internet Machine’. I had seen the same work set up in the same three screen installation at the Lowry for their exhibition ‘Right Here, Right Now’. Surrounded by digital art this film exposed an discomforting clinical world. The images could almost be dismissed for being constructions or hyperrealities. Yet when exhibited at Big Bang Data, the same work just felt like documentary image of a world that seemed almost inevitable.
I think its important to understand that this exhibition is not tailored towards a fine art audience. In order to draw a larger more diverse crowed they are curating the exhibition around a variety of aspects. Perhaps this is why i felt a lot more disengage with this exhibition where it focus was not just the context of art compared to Electronic Superhighway.