DATA IS A RELATION NOT A PROPERTY

From 5 to 26 May 2023, the spaces of Bologna Attiva at DumBO will host the exhibition Data Is A Relation, Not A Property, presented by the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021.

Data is a relation, not a property stages a polyphonic, profound and timely account of the process of the “flattening” of existence, with a specific look at so-called platform urbanism, that is, the forms, dynamics and ways in which digital platforms transform the urban and its forms of life.

It is a visual, textual, theoretical, artistic, and research exploration that allows us to enter inside the complexity, dynamics, tensions and trends of our platform-society, and contributes to creating a public space for reflection and discussion on some of the issues that affect the present of our city and contribute to designing its future.

Through a composite program that within the framework of the exhibition includes the organisation of different moments of encounter, this second life of Platform Austria will give space in particular to the deepening of the slogan “Data is a relationship, not a property,” to open a public reflection on the construction of new and different data policies, and on the experimentation of alternatives to the privatisation of data.

 

PROGRAMME

05.05.2023, 16:00 – 17:30 – WORKSHOP: WHAT ABOUT ART AND THE DIGITAL? TIPS AND INSIGHTS.

CARMEN HINES (TU Wien) and BENJAMIN GERDES (Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm) will lead this workshop.This workshop aims to measure how contemporary art is being transformed in the maelstrom of digitisation. Through the discussion and review of the works of some digital artists, a collective reasoning on this issue will be developed through the confrontation with heterogeneous artistic practices. Secondly, the workshop intends to reflect on how it is possible to rethink forms of art exhibition and curatorship in the light of the most recent technological transformations symbolised by Artificial Intelligence.

 

05.05.2023, 18:30 – TALK AND VERNISSAGE: DATA IS A RELATION, NOT A PROPERTY

PETER MÖRTENBÖCK and HELGE MOOSHAMMER, curators of Platform Austria and Professors at TU Wien will open the exhibition with an introductory talk. The talk will be in English with restitution of the content in Italian. Aperitif will follow.

’Data is a Relation Not a Property’ suggests a reading of the composition and purpose of data different to the one that has come to dominate market-oriented discourses. Rather than a quasi-natural, tradable commodity, we propose to understand data as a collectively produced means of organising social co-existence. What is therefore at stake in the governance of data is not so much the question of what value we put on data but how we value the relations that underpin the generation of data.

In this introduction to the homonymous exhibition, we will explore the emerging plethora of linkages between data capitalism and the current transformation of our cities: Alongside visual exhibits by more than 40 contributors we will discuss the expanding socio-spatial typologies of platform urbanism and their role in neoliberal data extractivist practices.

 

26.05.2023, 18:00 – 19:30 – FINISSAGE AND PANEL DISCUSSION: DATA AS COMMON. POSSIBILITIES, EXPERIMENTATIONS, RISKS.

Data are the raw material of platform capitalism. They are socially-produced common knowledge. The question of the use of data is a crucial political question of the present and the future. It is a frontier of experimentation between extractivism and the revival of new possibilities, between a 4.0 planning policy and the power diffusion of blockchain and web 3.0. How can we imagine, experiment and build a different data policy, understood as a commons? How can cities be contexts in which to experiment with alternatives to the privatisation of data?

Bologna AttivaOfficina DumboVia Camillo Casarini 19, 40131 Bologna