This Real-Time Artwork Is Powered by the Metadata of Thousands of People

Multimedia artist and TED fellow Julie Freeman works at the intersection of art, technology, science, and nature. In The Lake, Freeman electronically-tagged fish that then made music. With in-particular, she and Jeremy Ramsden made 16 graphic artworks inspired by nanotechnology.

In her latest online project, We Need Us, previewed at the Tate Modern as part of The Space's launch party, Freeman is exploring big data in animated form. The project will make its official debut on The Space this September.

Co-commissioned with The Space and Open Data Institute, as part of the latter's Data as Culture program, the work uses participant metadata from [Zooniverse](http://We Need Us was previewed at the Tate Modern as part of the launch of The Space. It was an early animated 'sketch' of the work. I took the unusual step of previewing the unfinished work. It was slightly unnerving, but as the entire piece is being developed in an open source way, with an open license and open data, it seems fitting to continue the trend and just expose the process.). Robert Simpson, another TED fellow, worked with Freeman and Zooniverse to fashion a custom API that enabled them to access the data they needed. We Need Us will also contrast the artistic translation of metadata with other data analysis that Zooniverse conducted with Southampton University.

As for how We Need Us will look, it will take the form of a real-time online animated artwork exploring the metadata generated from the activities of Zooniverse's million-plus participants. The idea is to create an "ever-growing environment of sounds and animated forms."

"Unlike traditional data-visualisation, which helps us understand and make sense of information from large data sets, ‘We Need Us’ explores the unique properties of the data itself," reads the website. "The work explores the distinct, living qualities and particular characteristics data might have, such as growth, velocity and fragility. Freeman asks us to consider what the meaning of data might be beyond its value-laden content."

We Need Us is also described as a framework and a system that will change in unpredictable and unknowable ways as metadata flows through it. Ideally, the online work will remind visitors of the humanity in technology, and that "we need 'us' as much as we need it".

"We Need Us is an early animated ‘sketch’ of the work," said Freeman of the preview, which was projected onto a large screen. "I took the unusual step of previewing the unfinished work. It was slightly unnerving, but as the entire piece is being developed in an open source way, with an open license and open data, it seems fitting to continue the trend and just expose the process."

While Freeman said it's not entirely accurate to describe her as a "data artist," she doesn't have much of a problem with the label.

"It’s probably more accurate to say 'an artist who is creating data art using data as an art material'," said Freeman. "I’m not concerned about the semantic distinctions, but if it helps to communicate the kind of work that I’m making right now, I don’t mind a label."

With We Need Us, there can be no doubt that she's intrigued by big data. She calls data "the material of now", and that which will underlie the most important products, services, and artworks of the 21st century. And she's not necessarily paranoid about government collection and analysis of data, as long as it's done in a transparent and responsible fashion.

"The impact of data is impossible to ignore," she said. "It’s not just appealing, it’s intriguing, abundant, malleable, exposing, honest, deceitful… free. As a rich source of information I find it hard to imagine why you wouldn’t want to work with it."

Freeman calls data a broad and overused term, making it easy to forget that data is just collections of values that help us understand a phenomenon more deeply. "In this sense it is as compelling as the world around us," she said. "Governments have an enormous amount of data in their hands, and what we can’t do is reverse that. What we can do is ask them to be responsible with what they have, be transparent about how they gather it and what they do with it, and treat it and its subjects with a high level of respect."

As Freeman sees it, there is also a lot of confusion over what data is. Personal data differs from open data, while big data is distinct from shared data.

"Understanding that data is a very generic term is a starting point," Freeman said. "Think of data as love: we have platonic, romantic, sibling, compassionate, unconditional, tough—there are many forms with many meanings. We need to talk more specifically about data."

Where does Freeman see big data heading? Does she, like Jaron Lanier, see users demanding something like a micropayment for handing over data to Google, Facebook, and other Silicon Valley companies?

"The idea of personal data stores are interesting here, where we each hold all our own data and give access keys to those that request it," mused Freeman. "Services and users can then enter your store (as they have the key) and use a certain part of the data flagged as available to them, but at any time we can revoke access."

Freeman sees issues with this approach, as she doesn't think the idea of a "decentralised web reverting to individual castles of data" is particularly futuristic thinking. But a solution might lie somewhere, perhaps along the lines of Max Van Kleek's work in the area of personal data stores.

"This idea of data as a currency makes me think of Euclid, a first reference to data," Freeman said. "His book of propositions, called Data, was written to 'facilitate and promote the method of resolution or analysis'. The propositions in it (such as, if X then Y) help us take givens (existing datum) and use the propositions to deduce or infer new data. In this context, data is the gift that keeps on giving. Data begets data."

Freeman also sees network infrastructure as the control space more than the data itself. "If you shut down the network and kill the power our data becomes meaningless," Freeman said. "The future of much data has to be open—'open by default'."

Freeman foresees new services popping up to create new open data sets that will allow users to innovate with new data, not simply wrest closed data out of others' hands.

"The amount of data is doubling every two years, perhaps we need to let go of controlling old data and focus on how, when and where we generate the new," she said. "I don’t know what hue it will take, but if there’s enough light there will always be some shadow. And we need the shadows for perspective and balance."

As long as the shadows aren't up to no good with user data, then perhaps we can use a little darkness. It will take a lot of work to bring transparency and responsibility to big data, but also to decide what we do with the new forms of data we generate in the future. Data that will, of course, shape Freeman's We Need Us over time.