Manifest Data inverts the neo-Marxian stance that the digital universe literally melts all that is solid into air by translating personal web browsing data into a 3D printed sculpture. These data—the same data large firms such as Google, Amazon, and Netflix, package and sell as data-based representations of the person who produces it—not only come to stand (in) for a user’s physical form, but they also literally and financially fuel the web’s metabolism. Manifest Data plays on this by reversing the melting process, and condensing the digital representation back into a solid form. It in-corporates personal user data in both senses of the term: it re-bodies (restores body to) a user’s personal digital identity data and it, in a sense, transfers ownership of that data from data-capturing corporations back to its original owner.
People Involved With The Project
- Amanda Starling Gould, PhD Candidate, Literature (Primary Investigator)
- Luke Caldwell, PhD candidate, Literature (Developer)
- Shane Denson, DAAD postdoctoral Fellow, Literature (Designer; Developer)
- Karin Denson, Artist (External Partner)