Databases were a hot topic in about 1971. Nowadays they sit in the background as the backbone of AI and internet platforms. Databases are often seen, and used, as mechanisms of order and rationalisation, epitomising the splitting of formalism and feeling or intensive and extensive. Can their ordered and ordering qualities, and their foundational role in numerous social structures, such as prisons, health, or streaming services, provide grounds for their experimental reworking?
This seminar looks at artists who see databases as a context in which to intervene and invent, as a site of sociability, and a space of counter-investigation. Work discussed includes projects by Kristoffer Gansing and Linda Hilfling Ritasdatter, Tomas Percival, YoHa, Pad.ma, Forensic Architecture, and Rybn.org.