Emails, selfies, shopping transactions, Google searches, dating profiles: every day we’re producing data in huge quantities. Our online activity, alongside that of businesses and governments, has led to a massive explosion – a ‘Big Bang’ – of data. This radical shift in the volume, variety and speed of data being produced, combined with new techniques for storage, access, and analysis, is what defines the proliferation of data. It is radically reshaping our world and is set to revolutionise everything we do. Data today gives us new ways of doing things: from scientific research to business strategy, politics to social interaction, our new data-driven society that has the potential to be more fair, stable, and efficient and yet it also created a tools for unprecedented mass surveillance and commodification. Data access and usage rights, along with the value they comprise, are at the heart of many concerns. Big Bang Data explores the issues surrounding the datafication of our world through the work of artists, designers, journalists and visionaries. As the data explosion accelerates, we ask if we really understand our relationship with data, and explore the meaning and implications of data for our future.

Big Bang Data was a major exhibition at Somerset House where artists, designers and innovators explored how data is transforming our world. Big Bang Data includes over 50 works by artists, designers and innovators: Brendan Dawes Charles Joseph Minard David McCandless Ellie Harrison Eric Fischer Erica Scourti Eva and Franco Mattes Fight for the Future and Demand Progress Florence Nightingale Forensic Architecture Future Cities Catapult Heather Dewey-Hagborg Horst Ademeit IF Ingo Günther Ingrid Burrington and Dan Williams Interaction Research Studio, Goldsmiths ITO World Jaime Serra James Bridle John Snow Jonathan Harris Jonathan Minard Julian Oliver Julie Freeman Kamel Makhloufi Kiln Laura Poitras Lev Manovich and Moritz Stefaner Lisa Jevbratt Lise Autogena and Josh Portway mySociety Nesta Nicholas Felton Open Knowledge OpenCorporates Owen Mundy Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico Philipp Adrian Rafael Lozano Hemmer Ryoji Ikeda Safecast Salvatore Iaconesi & Oriana Persico Stefanie Posavec and Giorgia Lupi Tekja TeleGeography The Guardian The Long Now Foundation Thomson and Craighead Timo Arnall Umbrellium William Elford Zach Blas

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/20853