Title:
Daily Data Display
Wall
Location: Installation at all gallery venues
Each day for the duration of the exhibition, Ellie (aka the Daily Data Logger)
is collecting data about her everyday routine. She produces twenty different
readouts which can fluctuate on a daily basis, such as, amongst others: how
much sleep she gets, how many steps she takes, what food she eats, the atmospheric
temperature etc. The Daily Data Display Wall installed in the gallery
is a variety of objects, lights, monitors and displays which is reconfigured
each day by the gallery staff to reflect the data Ellie has collected on the
day previous. Anyone making multiple visits to the exhibition can view a different
installation each time.
detail of Daily Data Logger tracksuit
and clipboard
Between March 2001 and
March 2002 I ate 1640 meals and snacks. Between September 2002 and September
2003 I travelled 9236 kilometres on London Transport. Since 22 April 2002
I have swum 245 kilometres in my local swimming pool. In 2003 I walked 2269
kilometres, drank 559 alcohol drinks, produced 7784 gaseous emissions, read
2185 pages from novels and received 1053 text messages. So far in 2005 I have
sworn on 89 occasions …[1]
I can recite all this because for several years I have
been religiously documenting small and insignificant events occurring within
my everyday routine; experiences most people take for granted each day. Through
the act of recording and noting these things down, I have assigned them an
elevated status. Immortalising the ephemeral and, over time, building up a
vast database of information about my own life.[2] We are
all the only true experts on our own lives – I have decided to utilise
and strengthen this expertise through my ongoing investigations and the new
work produced for Day-to-Day Data.
The following pages show the equipment required for the new project. The Daily
Data Logger is the character I have created to carry out the data collection
process. She is an enthusiastic, data-collecting obsessive so keen on measuring
/ quantifying the things that surround her that she permanently dresses in
a tracksuit (for easy manoeuvrability) and wears a utility belt jam-packed
with data collecting devices. Throughout the day she records the required
information onto the Daily Data Log sheets.
This project (unlike previous works) has a live and evolving representation
in the gallery space. The Daily Data Display Wall is a carefully
compiled collection of lights, monitors, sounds, sirens, objects, colour-charts
and LED displays which are switched on / off, removed or adjusted, dependant
on the data recorded on the Daily Data Log sheet and emailed to the
gallery each day. The project is intrinsically linked to the gallery as a
system and relies heavily on the gallery staff. At the start of each day they
must follow the instructions given to reconfigure the Display Wall,
thereby assisting in the creation of a fluctuating reflection of my own daily
life.
Ellie Harrison
May 2005
1. Correct as of 20 May 2005.
2. All this information is archived on the website
below
www.ellieharrison.com
