It is invisible, untouchable, ethereal. Often inaccessible, hard to interpret, but at the some time, ubiquitus. We’re immersed in it at all times, just like air: it’s our Data.

Everyday, we produce around 2.5 quintillion bytes of Data, for an average of around 1 giga bytes per person per day, as result of the interactions with online services including social media, web browsing, entertainment and e-commerce. Some of these services bring a lot of convenience to our lives, others make us waste a lot of time scrolling and swiping. Most of the mainstream ones have one thing in common: we seem to need them more and more to function in society. In order to have a role, you need to opt in, and log in.

The work “I_AM_MY_DATA” explores the topic, focusing on multiple aspects of the interaction between the individual and the Data he daily generates, such as privacy and transparency, update and accumulation, usefulness and uselessness, resource and constraint. How does this Data look like? Do we shape it or does it shape us? How are people behaviors influenced by this never ending series of alphanumerical values hidden behind “likes”, “tweets” and “chats”?

The eleven artworks of the exhibition use Data recollected from the artist’s social media profiles (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp) as the raw material, simultaneously medium and media, each time processed in a different way: the Data is progressively printed, painted, mirrored, hidden, cut, stretched, pressed, compressed, crumpled, torn off; each of these manipulations is meant to be a starting point to explore a different connection, or conflict, between the user and its own Data, either questioning the current condition or speculatively imagine future scenarios.

Focoff – Project Space
Rua de Alegria,34. Lisboa

© Photodocumenta