The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies

Publication Details 320mm x 239mm, 33pp, paperback. ISBN 978-1-922361-18-9

Author and/or Editor name/s Authors: Katherine Moline, Angela Goddard, Beck Davis, Warraba Weatherall, Vanessa Bartlett, Geoff Hinchcliffe and Mitchell Whitelaw. Copy editor: Linda Michael

Author and/or Editor bio/s Katherine Moline is an artist, designer and Associate Professor at UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture.

Angela Goddard is a writer, curator and Director of Griffith University Art Museum, and Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Queensland College of Art.

Beck Davis is Head of School at the Australian National University, School of Art and Design.

Warraba Weatherall is an installation artist from the Kamilaroi nation of South West Queensland and a doctoral candidate at Queensland College of Art, Griffith University.

Vanessa Bartlett is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Culture and Communication at University of Melbourne.

Geoff Hinchcliffe is a designer, developer and researcher with an interest in design, data, computation and interface aesthetics.

Mitchell Whitelaw is an academic, writer and maker with interests in digital design and culture, data practices, more-than-human worlds and digital collections.

Year of publication 2021

Publisher Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane

Abstract The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies is a ground-breaking project that brings together both eminent and emerging artists and designers to show how creative applications of data technology are crucial for a vital, inclusive and sustainable future. Managing and presenting data are central concerns in our contemporary lives. The Data Imaginary: Fears and Fantasies presents works by artists and designers that are at the forefront of contemporary practice, whose practices focus on some of the pressing issues of our time – climate change, inclusion of Indigenous cultural knowledges, future city design, and data privacy. This publication comprises three essays by Warraba Weatherall, Vanessa Bartlett, and Geoff Hinchcliffe and Mitchell Whitelaw, and an introductory essay by the exhibition’s curatorium. In an era of data intensification, bringing these works together facilitates a critical and timely focus, gives new insights into data, and highlights its potential manifestations and application in our everyday lives.