
Co-Building Worlds: Data Capitalism and Other Stories
| Curator | Performative Presentation and conference paper | 2016 | Data Publics conference, Goldsmiths College & Gasworks Gallery, London |
As part of the PostHuman Unit for NeuroCapitalism (PHUNC) project in collaboration with Dr Cecilia Wee, “Co-Building Worlds: Data Capitalism and Other Stories” was a performative conference paper presented at the Data Publics conference led by Goldsmiths University of London. The paper focused on data-capitalism and was delivered at Gasworks Gallery, London. Using the collaborative storyworlding method, the project collected personal and intimate experiences in the form of life writing from a worldwide network of PHUNC affiliates, referred to as “researchers” who worked in arts and cultural contexts as well as in think-tanks, policy-based organisations and higher education.
The aim was to open up the opaque term of data-capitalism and “researchers” included: Jamie Allen & Johannes Bruder at the Critical Media Lab Basel, Hannah Barton, Chris Downs & Gemma Lord, Joseph DeLappe, Daniel C. Howe, Stephanie Hankey & Marek Tuszynski, Tactical Technology Collective, Simone C. Niquille, Caroline Sinders, Cassie Thornton & Elizabeth Coughlin, Sara Watson.
The group were invited to provide a short example of data-capitalism and started with the questions, what are the experiences of living in a data capitalist world? What daily compromises do we make? How might focusing on these inner realities expand knowledge of data capitalism? The contributions ranged from the highly personal to the professional, and were assembled into a play set in a museum archive of the future. It featured two curators conducting archival research for an exhibition on the historic era of “data-capitalism”. The script is a conversation between the two cultural workers discussing the scope and limitations of certain sources, artworks, and examples.