The Day-to-Day Data Exhibition Development Workshop was held at the Angel Row Gallery in Nottingham on 23 & 24 August 2004. It was attended by the initial group of ten artists. Below is a synopsis of each of the artist’s presentation at the workshop and a brief outline of their initial proposal for the Day-to-Day Data exhibition. Independent curator Sarah Cook also attended the workshop and gave a presentation. Her specially commissioned text summarising the discussions that arose at the workshop can be read in the context section of the website.
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Abigail Reynolds

Abigail presented a brief outline of her algorithmic form methodology and shared her research of tracking word histories and genealogy. She presented word maps that show how a group of words connect to one another etymologically or semantically.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition Abigail proposes to develop a collaged word map whereby household objects are assigned a word based on the volume of the object, rather than any other linguistic system. The size of the object is directly proportional to the word's lifetime. The words are written directly onto the images, which are arranged to describe the word's relationships.

www.abigailreynolds.com


Adele Prince

Adele’s presentation explored her fascination with the little things in life that often get overlooked. The things that we do every day with out even thinking about it: eating, brushing our teeth, having a cup of tea, scratching our head, folding our bus ticket. She explained her methods of closely examining these things and breaking them down into little rituals.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition Adele proposes to present her research into the abandoned shopping trolleys, which she constantly spots around town. Seemingly left by people who had too much shopping and considered one pound a fair price for the abduction of a trolley. She plans to photograph these trolleys, capturing them, looking dejected, but sometimes kind of liberated as they venture further away from the supermarket.

www.adeleprince.com


Charlotte White

Charlotte discussed her fascination in readily available statistics, which are expressed in terms of how frequently an everyday event is occurring on a global scale. She explained her interest in the way information is reconfigured and expressed in this manner for added dramatic effect.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition Charlotte proposes to make an 8-channel sound piece. Using statistics such as ‘Every second 2650 cups of tea are drunk in the UK’, the computer will trigger a sound sample to play every ‘so many’ seconds in correspondence with the statistic. They will all overlap to create a cacophony of sound.


Christian Nold

Christian is the designer and creator of Bio Mapping. The Bio Mapping device measures Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), which is a simple indicator of emotional arousal, in conjunction with geographical location using GPS. At the exhibition development workshop, all the delegates had the opportunity to experiment with the device whilst walking through Nottingham city centre and to saw the results in their own Bio Map movies.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition Christian would like to show the computer generated movies of people’s walks with 3D maps showing buildings being elevated by communal GSR level. He is also considering running a four day Bio Mapping workshop during the exhibition.

www.biomapping.net


Ellie Harrison

For her presentation, Ellie attempted to trace back to the beginnings of her fascination with the data of everyday life. She explored her working methods of excessively accumulating data and manipulating its meaning by representing it in a removed context.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition, Ellie is keen to develop a Daily Data Display Wall, which will be the ultimate experiment in modes of data visualisation. She will collect data about her daily activities for each day of the exhibition. At the end of each day, the data will be collated and emailed to the gallery staff who will use it to re-configure the Daily Data Display Wall. It will have a different appearance for each day of the exhibition.

www.ellieharrison.com


Hannah Brown

Hannah discussed her interest in satirically translating the emotions of human behavior and relationships into analytical list or chart form. For the exhibition development workshop, Hannah produced a WEC (Workshop Evaluation Checklist), which all the delegates completed as part of the summarisation at the end of the day.

For the Day-to-Day Data Exhibition Hannah proposes to make and exhibit a set of Daily Efficiency and Behavioral Analysis Charts. The charts help monitor the regularity and stringency of a person's routine, while recording their behavioral interaction with others.


Helen Frosi

Helen’s presentation explored her assigned role as a quasi-scientific meddler destined to examine the arcane elements of everyday living. She discussed her somewhat obsessional methodology and considerered the invaluable assistance offered by the database in collating the vast quantities of research she obtains.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition Helen proposes to formulate Day-to-Day Divinations, using research into randomly occurring data from within her everyday experiences. Through this experimentation she hopes to find, and share, the ultimate formula for happiness.


Lucy Kimbell

Lucy presented her recent projects, which reveal some of the ambiguities inherent in attempts to measure value. These include Audit - a book which documents the process of asking people who know her ‘What am I worth?’ and the LIX Index - a one year web-based performance index representing the artist.

For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition, Lucy proposes to develop a new project within an ongoing body of work she groups under the title I measure therefore I am. She will explore the ways in which data collected can be represented and interacted with in the gallery space.

www.lucykimbell.com


Richard Dedomenici

Richard talked about his previous work and then presented four proposals for the Day-to-Day Data exhibition, which collectively address how technology can augment data handling:

ProseBot would use text-to-speech software to fill a room with found spam-poetry. Nail Salon Belt would generate real-time data on the distribution of nail salons in Greater London. Things#2 would use algorithmic software to collate and project three years’ worth of personal notebook entries. Google Rating would explore the correlation between self-Googling and the pound / dollar exchange rate.

www.dedomenici.co.uk


Tony Kemplen

Unfortunately Tony was not able to attend the exhibition development workshop. A short presentation was made on his behalf outlining his ongoing working method of combining to two isolated sets of data in an unexpected way and introducing his proposed work for the exhibition.

Twice a week Tony eats pizza while watching the evening news on television. For the Day-to-Day Data exhibition Tony proposes to rigorously document and analyse this activity in a number of different ways. The resulting research will be seen on jigsaw puzzles, bearing images showing various interpretations of the processed information.

www.kemplen.co.uk


Sarah Cook

Sarah is co-editor of CRUMB (the Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss) and is currently a post-doctoral curator and researcher at the University of Sunderland in conjunction with BALTIC. Sarah is also a member of the Faculty of Taxonomy at the University of Openess.

Sarah made an introductory presentation, contextualising the Day-to-Day Data exhibition in relation to a trend in contemporary new media art in the databasing of information and focusing on the issues of the gallery-based presentation of data-driven artworks. She commented on the lessons learned from the conference on Data-based Art she organised for BALTIC last September, and discussed the ideas behind and some of the works in her international group exhibition Database Imaginary, which opened at the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre in Canada in November 2004 (co-curated with Steve Dietz and Anthony Kiendl).

www.crumbweb.org
www.twenteenthcentury.com/uo