(Un)real Data – Real Effects is a programme by !Mediengruppe Bitnik that is based on their research project Latent Spaces: Performing Ambiguous Data and curated in cooperation with Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, Slovenia 26. February – 14. June 2024. The conference is developed in collaboration with Felix Stalder and with the curatorial advice of the Latent Spaces research group.
With texts by Régine Debatty, Xiaowei R. Wang, Günseli Yalçınkaya, Milia Xin Bi and Thomas Spies, artworks by Simon Weckert and Total Refusal, and a collaborative project by Selena Savić, Gordan Savičić and !Mediengruppe Bitnik.
(un)real data ☁️ – (🧊)real effects explores the inherent ambiguity of data as an opportunity to not only describe the world but strategically intervene in it. Is it possible to create specific real-world outcomes by modifying our data streams? Can we intentionally produce data to interact with an algorithmic environment that is opaque, elusive and at the same time all-encompassing? In this book, the authors and artists explore the production of unreal data as acts of resistance and opposition, and as attempts to carve out small and often temporary spaces of agency and autonomy when faced with systems that seem to leave little room for imagination and choice.
How is reality shaped by data? How can the act of purposely creating data provide agency within data-driven systems? Does this act open a space for action in a datadriven society where opting out is no longer an option? Where in such a society is the space for our intervention in the world?
