Gianni Corino (PhD)

Associate Professor
Plymouth University

ON CULTURAL DATA

g.corino@plymouth.ac.uk

Corso Beni Culturali - Torino - 28/04/2020

 “All world is a stage”
props, digital art, data…
something about me

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 Remote Risonanze (2000)
A double theatre interactive
installation

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 Quixote (2005)
Mobile blogging
performance

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 3
dn{t} (2010)
Semantic web interactive projection – urban sentiment

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 Transactional set Roy Ascott (1971)

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 DEFINITION of CULTURAL DATA
Are cultural data different from any other
data?
Cultural data are not a thing.. yet!

3 kind data:
1. Born analogue
2. Born digital
3. Digitised

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 DEFINITION of CULTURAL DATA.

Data can also be classified in:

- Structured
- Unstructured

Data Source:
- PRIMARY - original; first-hand. Two camps:
quantitative (maths/stats, ‘objective’) &
qualitative (sensory, verbal, sonic, ‘subjective’)
- SECONDARY - Secondary - exists already,
published (archives, journals, news papers

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 DEFINITION of CULTURAL DATA.

Data is now recognized as one of the

founding pillars of our economy, and the
notion that the world grows
exponentially richer in data every day is
already yesterday’s news.

The ways we relate to data are evolving

more rapidly than we realize, and our
minds and bodies are naturally adapting
to this new hybrid reality built of both
physical and informational structures.
Giorgia Lupi, Data Humanism, A visual manifesto (2017)

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 EXTENSION of CULTURAL DATA
A quantitative study of literature, i.e. in
Britain in the 19th century is about or less
then 1% of what was published in Britain
at the same period.

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 Issue of SCALE
IBM Power of Ten (1968) by by
Charles and Ray Eames

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

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Issue of SPEED
High frequency trading

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 Issue of TRUST
A traveller puts his head under the edge of
the firmament in the original (1888) printing of the
Flammarion engraving. Unknown author

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 Issue of OWNERSHIP
The Matrix (1999) by the Wachowskis

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 Issue of EXPLOITATION
Cambridge Analytica and Facebook – Interference in 2016 American Election

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 Issue of ACCOUNTABILITY
Computer generated trade and automation.
Pound fall in value in 2017

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 Issue of INTERPRETATION
Eagle Line Super train presentation to the
Ministry of Transport
Big train TV series (BBC 1998 -2002)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXEgkM9eBts

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 Issue of VISUALISATION
“A dataset might lead to many stories”
Giorgia Lupi - “Nobels, no degrees”- Final Visualization, 2013,
published in La Lettura, the Sunday cultural supplement.

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 Issue of VISUALISATION
“A dataset might lead to many stories”
Giorgia Lupi – Dear Data, 2014,

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 Issue of SURVAILLANCE/CONTROL
“Houston we have a problem”
What is the trade off?
Apollo 13 (1995)

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 Issue of POLICIES, PROCEDURE and ACCESS
A T-Shirt with the Italian circulation self certificate during COVID-19 pandemic

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 Issue of POLICIES, PROCEDURE and
ACCESS
Open Data VS API
https://theodi.org/
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/

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 Issue of PRIVACY
Why proximity-tracing is important and its
integrity should be contextual
Jaromil, 11 Apr 2020
https://medium.com/@jaromil/why-proximity-tracing-is-important-and-its-integrity-should-be-
contextual-2b46e5681a45

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 What are the major new technologies that are
changing the landscape?

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 Digital Currency
Blockchain

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 Blockchain – Smart
contract and distributed
ledger

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 Social Media
User generated contents

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 “We must make decisions based on the real situation in the
sky, not on theoretical models.”

Giovanni Bisigneni, DG/CE International Air Transport Association

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 Internet and and
smarts objects

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 ‘Internet of Things’ Image source: IBM. Data source: IDC, (2014)
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 Artificial Intelligence
and Machine
Learning
Google CAT algorithm

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFS8hhVdAO8&feature=youtu.be

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 Logo
Using the Logomark

The Artory logomark was

designed to be playful and
ever-evolving. The mark may
be used by itself (without
the logotype), and can also
be manipulated/abstracted
to create patterns, diagrams
or animations

1.6

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 Watch the Artory Teaser
https://vimeo.com/114340188

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 INTRODUCING ARTORY

“THE WHAT’S ON GUIDE FOR CULTURE (MOBILE & WEB),

MEASURING THE QUALITY OF CULTURAL EXPERIENCES
THROUGH SHARED CROSS ART FORM METRICS”

FOR USERS

FOR CULTURAL VENUES

FOR LEAD CITY PARTNERS

www.artory.co.uk
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 ARTORY’s QUALITY METRICS

1. Collaboratively developed with and for the sector

2. Based on existing research & rigid methodology

3. Measure the quality of specific audiences’ experiences (both in

real-time & over time…)

4. Affordable, scalable and incentivised evaluation service

5. Offers integrated real-time and historical data analytics

6. Ability to toggle between visualising data for a city or a venue

7. Aligns and compliments national initiatives such as Audience

Finder & Culture Counts

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 CONTENT MANAGEMENT DASHBOARD

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 REAL-TIME DATA ANALYTICS

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 DEVELOPED BY A CITYWIDE COLLABORATION OF CULTURE LEADERS

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 DEVELOPED BY A CITYWIDE COLLABORATION OF CULTURE LEADERS

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DEVELOPED BY A CITYWIDE COLLABORATION OF CULTURE LEADERS
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DEVELOPED BY A CITYWIDE COLLABORATION OF CULTURE LEADERS
 POSTCODE MAP OF YOUR AUDIENCES FOR TARGET MARKETING

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 Finbook (2017)
Design Informatics –
University of Edinburgh

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 Finbook (2017)
Design Informatics –
University of Edinburgh

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 ‘Internet of Things’ Image source: IBM. Data source: IDC, (2014)
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EXERCISE

This exercise is an invitation to think how to generate new value around existing cultural objects, pre-existing data or newly generated data
in the emerging digital ecosystem.

Choose an object - material or immaterial, doesn’t matter; the object must be representative of your institution / research / job
Explain why you have chosen it and what the characteristics / qualities of the object are.

Now we list all the data or data sets existing in relation to the object or which could be collected if the object were digitized or exhibited on
social media.

Our aim is to find out all the possible data that gravitate around your object then select the ones that have the potential to generate new
value.
Now let's try to triangulate 3 data sets with the aim of generating new cultural value.
Specify the reasons, the method of triangulation and what would be the generated value.
Now it’s up to you, carry on triangulating other data sets and imagine the new values, repeat the exercise as many times as you want.

Have fun!
 DATA OBJECTS and NARRATIVES
Chris Speed - Toilet matters (2015)
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 DATA OBJECTS and NARRATIVES
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 Thanks

Gianni Corino
g.corino@plymouth.ac.uk
www.i-dat.org
codex-research.net

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