DATA ART

For me mobile photography is not another evolutionary step in photography (film → digital → mobile) but a new art form. I call this new art form data art. Data art is simply the art form of capturing data and manipulating it later in some digital fashion. It is somewhat similar to traditional photography but traditional photography has emphasized the capture process- what you are photographing, how, etc. These questions are irrelevant in data art. The emphasis is taking this data and telling a new story with it.

What mobile photography has allowed us to do is capture voluminous amounts of our daily minutia. We have focused mostly on the capture process and ignored the data itself. Yes, we have filters and the such, and while these are part of the process of data art- what should be different is the thought process.

The final aspect of data art I want to introduce is the sharing / non ownership of data. The key to data art is being able to use / manipulate any and all data. As such, we need to move away from sole ownership of our data and see it as a collective good.

I really do think the next major art movement will be manipulating all of the vast, existing data we have. Future artists will simply find it unnecessary to capture any more data because all of the world will be available in one digital form or another. Instead they will focus on creating new worlds and telling origin stories.