talk

13/06/2025

Harvard University

Harvard CAMLab Artist Talk: Anti-Data

Cosmologists suggest that most of the universe is shaped by dark matter—an unseen force structuring what we observe. Similarly, data is shaped by what remains unobserved: its absences, boundaries, and media negativities. This talk explores the aesthetics and politics of these negative spaces through two projects exhibited at CAMLab: Post_Networks and Artificial Worldviews.

Post_Networks reimagines the web not as a network of discrete nodes, but as a surface shaped by the motion of connections. If points create lines, and lines create surfaces, what might emerge if we shift focus from the nodes to the spaces in between?

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methods are often referred to as black boxes, indicating that the user cannot understand the inner workings. By systematically querying ChatGPT’s API, Artificial Worldviews maps its internal assumptions—revealing the contours of a synthetic data. Together, these works examine how unobservable structures shape the knowledge we see, and what it means to design with, and against, those invisible forces.