<nettime> The Data-Life Theory

[Timothy Jaeger <timjaeger@thing.net>]

This is a 'hypertext' version of something I wrote a bit ago called THE DATA-
LIFE THEORY that links data-garbage, Godard, Stan Douglas, a number of other 
artists with ways that new processing techniques shape ourselves and practices.

It was published by Syracue University's SGA magazine LA PENSEE SAVAGE...I re-
edited it slightly, and put it up online...

Here's the first bit, but you can view it all at: 

http://www.thing.net/~timjaeger/data_life.html

Peace,
Tim Jaeger



[ ]  THE DATA-LIFE THEORY

The data-life theory is a serious attempt to re-configure the human apparatus 
not merely as an extension of the video-camera or other recording device, 
hereby thought of as an apparatus to the human, but as a machine in-and-of-
itself, an absorption unit, one that recognizes every waking (and non-waking) 
moments as instances of time (minutes, seconds, hours, etc..) that contain 
data, which can be picked out and culled over from the interlaced-field of 
(interlaced because the information field is naturally incomplete, somehow 
gutted, points of view left out, etc….i requires and produces more news, 
feedback, etc.) 

[ ]

The human in this scenario might go about the day in a manner that brings to 
mind the screen in SOUND FORGE: "Monitor..Record?" // seconds of time pass 
that could either be 'recorded' in a real or metaphorical sense // either 
using a video-camera apparatus or else the mind-apparatus // there is a 
diaphanous flow here between treating oneself as an extension of the video-
recording machine and as a recording device in-and-of itself //

[ ]

The data-life theory is not a model formulated as a reaction or running 
parallel to the Information Age and all it contains // rather, it is a symptom 
of hyper_life, life on the brink of a paradigm shift where one's sense of time 
itself is increasingly becoming mediated by blinking numbers and blue bars 
that lead to the filtering and computation of data //

[ ]

New forms of communication have arisen, and Artists like jennicam.com, Mark 
Dion, the French photographer Bruno Serralongue, video-artist Kristin Lucas, 
are examples of those who feels an intense but somehow unidentifiable desire 
to not merely be present and accounted for as a statistic or symptom of hyper-
capitalism (credit cards, global trend marketing, etc.) // these individuals / 
organizations are engaged in some sort of perceptual self-reconfiguration to 
the contemporary scenario and make use of the (lack of) history, and the 
information-rich present and make use of factoids, residuals, packets, 
resonances, events, things, statements, answers, etc. in a way that leads to 
new self or institutional formations //


[ ]

For example, how a simple twisting of the master volume knob usurps common-
enough paradigms in drum n'bass music care of Alexander's Dark Band: Lord 
Calrec LP//

  
CROSS-REFERENCE YOUR WAY TO THE TOP  
 

Mark Dion's thoughts on this new configuration: 

[ ]

"…Making art is no longer confined to the institutional spaces that we've 
created for such activity. It's more in the "field" now. The focus is on 
relations and processes - an ecology of art if you will - and not solely on 
decontenxtualized objects that are like natural specimens."

[ ]

Data-lifers are born distributors: in this sense they act as conduits. Data-
lifers are not necessarily 'information-seekers,'as oftentimes the information 
just comes to them naturally…they just need be there as an eyewitness, an 
observer, a recorded 

[ ]

For example, during a recent interview in Chicago when musician Jjim O'Rourke 
was asked exasperatingly where he discovers all the music that he does, he 
just adds: // "I'm a mad cross-referencer..when I hear one referred to in 
relation to something else I have to hear that other thing, to compare, to 
continue learning.." //

....
....
 
Continued at:
http://www.thing.net/~timjaeger/data_life.html






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