La Lucha Sin Fin (The Struggle Without End) and Data Is Political are research projects that investigate the cultural mechanics of contemporary networks and communities. La Lucha Sin Fin explores contemporary charismatics and the relation of design and technology to the formation and disintegration of communities under unstable conditions. The project investigates the tactics used to persuade constituencies through a visual analysis of three distinct social movements, asking how they differentiate themselves from the cultural backdrop against which they operate. Data Is Political examines the relationship between art, design and the politics of information. Radical increases in computing power and speed together with the rhetoric of openness and organizational transparency have led to a desire to read, visualize and make sense of vast and expanding archives of digital information. Often such initiatives are framed as promoting the public good. But the act of storing and visualizing can conceal as well as reveal underlying structures and global networks. Far from neutral, the act of visualizing information occurs within a complex and contentious field of competing agendas. Simply put, data is political. Through a series of interviews, events and visual investigations, the research asks: what are the aesthetic, ethical and spatial dimensions of information and its relation to power, the production of knowledge, and construction of urban spaces?
Data Is Political is symposium scheduled for March 15, 2012 to be held in Bergen, Norway. Symposium proceedings along with interviews and pilot projects will be published in a book forthcoming. See http://dataispolitical.net for details. La Lucha Sin Fin is a video insallation that will be published as a DVD and book publication to be published by the Jan van Eyck Academie in September 2012.
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