Greetings from our culture team. We are Verónica Toro, Viviana Forero, Nicolás Barahona and Juan Pablo Marín.

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#FEATURED-ARTIST

Jer Thorp

Source: www.jerthorp.com/about

Jer Thorp is an artist, writer, and teacher based in New York. He is best known for designing the algorithm to make visible the nearly 3,000 names on the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan. He was the first New York Times Data Artist in Residence, is a National Geographic Explorer, and in 2017 and 2018 served as Innovator in Residence at the Library of Congress.

His works, inspired by data, have been exhibited in Times Square, New York, at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, at the Ars Electronica Center in Austria, and the National Museum in Seoul, Korea, among other places.

Discover his way of analyzing and seeing the world here.

#EVENTS

Gray Area Festival 2021: Worlding Protocol

This festival will take place from October 20-26. It is an annual study of culture through creative practice, with presentations, conversations, workshops, and a free exhibition accessible online.

Worlding Protocol brings together thinkers and artists who challenge their disciplines in a call to explore new models of art and technology. It will feature experts such as Audrey Tang, Benjamin Bratton, McKenzie Wark, and Wendy Chun.

#CONGRESS

Abrelatam Condatos is a meeting point for the Latin American data community, bringing together activists, artists, public entities, researchers, and those interested in open data.

To encourage artistic experimentation and the use of data, last year -2020- they launched Datos + arte desde casa awards, you can visit the exhibition online.

The organizers have announced that they are already preparing the new version of this congress, which is one of the most relevant for those who work with data in LAC.

(In the email version of this newsletter we made a mistake, we had confusion with the 2020 edition and announced a new version of the awards for 2021, but the congress organizers have not made any statement in this regard.)

#ARTICLES

Surveillance society: artificial lighting for a watched public

In this article in The Architectural Review, Mona Sloane, a sociologist working on inequality in the context of AI design and policy, emphasizes how the history of AI surveillance is rooted in the genealogy of street lighting.

Sloane shows the polarization between the aesthetic and social codification of these nocturnal spaces, fueled by the urban myth that the lighting of public space prevents crime.

It also refers to STANZA, a British artist whose net art systems include audiovisual installations, videos, paintings, software, and public participation artworks. Of particular note is The Nemesis Machine, 2010-2019, a constantly evolving work, always different and expanding, with multiple layers incorporating concepts of data ownership, surveillance, real-time space, and urban environments.

Paradoxically, the machine acts to liberate us through technology with open process proposals while at the same time making us complicit in its restrictive system of control.

Read the full article at this link.

Source: stanza.co.uk

Activism inside and outside the galleries

Megan O’Grady, an art critic and essayist, writes about Eyal Weizman, an artist-activist whose work has been exhibited in international human rights tribunals, facing death threats and cyber-attacks almost every day.

Weizman is the founder of Forensic Architecture, an investigative agency that uncovers violence committed by states, police forces, the military, and corporations.

His work has been featured in several major data-driven art museums. Access the full article, published in The New York Times Style Magazine.

Eyal Weizman - Fuente: Ekaterina Izmestieva

#TBT

Telling Stories with Data

A few months ago, we spoke with Oliver Morales Agiss, editor of La Data Mx, about the importance of journalism as a diffusion tool that allows storytelling with data, helps to strengthen the sources of information, and improves their understanding.

Oliver emphasized the value of diversity of opinions and multidisciplinary teams with a broader view of the data and the story to be told. Relive our talk in Spanish.

#VISUALIZATION

From Thales of Miletus (620 - 520 BC) to David Chalmers (1966), this interactive visualization provides insight into the main postulates of Western philosophy. Deniz Cem Önduygu, Master of Arts at Sabancı University, is the researcher who gave the concept to develop the tool. Its objectives are to share knowledge and show the permanent connection between the thinkers who have shaped our society.

The project was conceived in 2012, started in 2014, and until 2018 saw the light of day. It is being updated periodically with new philosophers and more content. Explore and learn with this visualization, which was praised by the Faculty of Philosophy of Oxford University.

#NFT

This month, Battle Hero, an NFT game made by and for gamers, was launched. It combines the battle royale Fornite and Brawl Starts elements, two of the most successful online multiplayer video games in recent years.

Battle Hero was created by Be a Lion, a group of Spanish developers who applied blockchain technologies. Thus, they joined Free to Play and Play to Earn modalities, with which users will be rewarded according to their playing time.

The opening to the public will take place on October 20. Learn more at their official website: https://battlehero.io/

That's all for now!

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