WE TOOK the opportunity to visit the exhibition that everyone is raving about at London’s gorgeous venue – Somerset House. As a design agency and with our collective of creatives – we love visualising data! Data is not only useful for revealing information, it can also be used as a rich source for artists and designers to create abstract worlds and experiences.
Real-time data from living things can be translated to give new perspectives and understanding. Others look at data itself, revealing interesting and unique properties that can be poetically explored.
“‘Everyday we create some 2.5 trillion bytes of data, An incredible 90% of the data in the world today was created in the last two years alone.'”
Visually the exhibition has such an impact, some of the pieces of work had us MIND BLOWN! We found the exhibition made us value the dedication and practice of data visualisation, there was also a few nifty little information displays you could take part in yourself! one of our creatives discovered;
“‘In my lifetime the world could see a 4.7 degrees centigrade of global warming'”
Shocking! but very ‘informative’! There was also a computer which asked you questions on how you would run the city of London if you were given the responsibility of Mayor. It eventually spat out the information and conclusion based on your answers…here was ours…
“‘Under your leadership, housing in London 2036 is not fairing well. The choices you have made have meant available housing has significantly declined. Long commuting has become the norm for those that work centrally, and living in London is becoming unachievable for most'”
Now as you can imagine, when we were faced with this message we were horrified and stunned with disbelief…we were certain we’d answered the questions all in favour of the future London community, we tried it again, and again…same message every time…either we’re not fit for being in charge of government schemes, or we were being conned every time! Luckily we’re designers, so don’t panic.
We also learnt of this very powerful and moving statement;
“‘The Cloud is the most deceptive metaphor ever coined, the cloud is actually supported by an enormous network of physical servers – devouring huge amounts of energy'”
We are admittedly all users of ‘The Cloud’, the service that preserves our photos, emails and documents. Unfortunately unlike it’s name, nothing light or intangible lies behind it. The enormous physical servers hide in wastelands around the world (creepy). They are all linked by a spiderweb of subterranean cables and electromagnetic waves.
What we took back from Big Bang Data was incredibly informative and visually engaging. We always feel honoured to view the hard work of respectable creatives, artists and designers alike - we'd recommend it to all!
The Creatives of Creative Action