Peter Nelson: Data Stones
Title:
- Data Stones
Artist(s) and People Involved:
Exhibiting Artist(s):
Symposium:
Venue(s):
Medium:
- Data visualization animation
Artist Statement:
Data Stones explores the overlap of Chinese and European philosophies offered by data visualisation. A database of every message sent between two people, accumulated through the regular internet usage is transformed into a computer generated rock. These stones are produced procedurally from the mun- dane dialogue accumulated by the everyday use of instant messaging. I download thousands of messages sent between two people and sort them according to length, date and content (using Latent Dirichlet Allocation). These various means of processing extract patterns and sentiments in what never had any intrinsic order. The stone is treated like a graph, where the statistical patterns my sentiments determines its shape, and becomes an object for contemplation and speculation. Data Stones relying on the logic that if a system encoded a stone, then it can always theoretically be decoded. In contemplating these stones, we hope to crystallize our thoughts, and finds ourselves, staring back.
Data Stones is presented as a single-channel video animation of a unique procedurally generated stone, accompanied by a musical composition. The stone is generated from the accumulated conversational data between my sister, and myself and the musical composition is based on the LDA analysis of the dominant topics that have emerged over the years of our relationship, based on what has been recorded by our use of instant message applications.
Sound by Tom Smith.
