Data≠Poetry
For the last decade I have been writing a single book of poetry... (it will be good). Over the same period of time I’ve been drawn to data and code.
Plainly, poetry mines and presents the directly experienced condition of life through language. The best poets materialize a set (a poem) of human codes we instinctively grasp through words— history, love, death, tyranny, sex, class, war, hope... In poetry, words, letters and the spaces between letters become the signs and rhythm of being human. As the poet Shelley wrote, poetry is a matter of synthesis, of allowing imagination to combine word, world and life directly.
Unlike poetry, data is the marks left by something viewed indirectly. It requires analysis, some sort of recombinant matrix to animate it. The patterns in data indicate extrapolated behavior. Even semantic data only refers to language directly. In short, data is out there and can arbitrarily form a pattern, but pattern is not person. No matter which matrix or function’s applied, data is not directly lived langugage; it’s not alive! (A different Shelley wrote of Frankenstein.)
Even so, the best data can cross a threshold from indifference to meaning— into human artifact. Periscopic does this well. They fill in the blanks between data and meaning, they bridge to insight. Fathom befriends data. Their collaboration with an open air library for migrant workers in Tel-Aviv captures some of the emotional range of borrowers. It alludes to the human well.
On the other hand, poor data, bottom line data, is a product aimed from point a to point b. Seems to me this is why data mining and covert action are almost synonymous. Point “a” I encourage you to do something. Point “b” I analyze the data in order to reinforce (or eliminate) that behavior. In this way, most data’s no-so-hidden-purpose is extractive not generative. Its purpose is to reinforce/eliminate the behavior it needs to perpetuate itself.
I think all this alludes to a profound question: in the oscillation between direct and indirect language where do we locate meaning? Is meaning a pre-scribed thing, or, as in duality, does it simply oscillate between some yes or no, on or off, 0/1. Or, is it both? More importantly, is culture itself oscillating between extractive and generative language? If so, as we confuse the two what are the significant social risks— far beyond the economic rewards.
In order to locate and still the oscillation of meaning, to communicate, there seems to be a need for an ethic. A very human boundary between generative and extractive language must be clarified. Good thing poetry supplies both.
“Our Proximity” is the working title of a book I am writing here. When it is complete, I will publish it as a collection of essays, images, video,interviews, and code. Love to know what you think here or @artsandideas
