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Data and art: November Theme of the Month On November 14th the exhibition "Database Imaginary" opens at the Walter Phillips Gallery at The Banff Centre, and CRUMB's Sarah Cook is one of the curators <http://databaseimaginary.banff.org/>. In a recent informal conversation between CRUMB and artist Graham Harwood, it was noted that one of the crucial moments missing from any historical contextualisation of new media art is the point at which we all started to deal with more and more data in our daily lives. He commented that what was needed was not a gallery designed for the exhibition of new media art, but a space - whether gallery or not - where we can, in his words ‘experience information’. How do curators deal with the aesthetics of data and artists' attempts to transform information into knowledge? Lev Manovich claims that "... as the practice of Cardiff and Liberskind shows, it is at the interactions of the physical space and the data that some of the most amazing art of our time is being created." But is physical space compatible with disembodied data? Can data be embodied in a space? What would a space for the experience of information be like? Reference: Manovich, Lev (2003) “The poetics of augmented space.” In: John Caldwell and Anna Everett (eds.) New media: Practices of digitextuality. New York: Routledge. p. 90. N.B. This month we are diverging slightly by not having invited respondents. The debate, as usual, is open to everyone, so please do chip in! ------------------------------------------------------------------- Beryl Graham, Senior Research Fellow, New Media Art School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask] CRUMB web resource for new media art curators http://www.crumbweb.org