Hearing about the two works such as The Dumpster and We Feel Fine was very interesting. They take the feelings that you are having and posting about online and generating them into an artwork. Its pretty cool to think that the online community could completely alter an artwork, just based on their feelings and what they are posting. Its interesting that this data is depicting our reality and changing as we change our own reality.
The work named State of the Union is based on many State of the Union speeches throughout history. The data forms text clouds based on which words are said the most. The more they are said, the larger the word in the cloud shape is. This work shows us which words were more important during certain speeches, which can also help us refer back to the time when they did happen. For example, Bush’s State of the Union focused on “Iraq” and “terrorists” along with other words related to that subject.
This reading made me realize that data is used for way more things than I had imagined. Before, I imagined data as something that was transferred through devices such as a computer. As it turns out, this isn’t all data is. Data can be used for artworks, which is something I have only discovered recently. I’m sure its been used longer than I know, but I think its something unique and its a new concept to myself.