Anna Barlik, Marcin Strzała, Jacek Sosnowski: Deceived by Data
At the Polish Pavilion at the 18th International Exhibition of Architecture in Venice, the artist Anna Barlik, architect Marcin Strzała, and curator Jacek Sosnowski will present a monumental installation intended as a starting point for discussion about how data-based new technologies shape our world.
At this year's Architecture Biennale you will present an exhibition that doesn't directly refer to buildings.
Jacek Sosnowski: In Venice, we will show an example of a datament. We've developed this concept in recent months, and it can be applied to any area of life. What w’ll present in the Polish pavilion is a strictly architectural narrative. Indeed, there are no direct references to buildings, their appearance, details or functions, but we create an essence of the language of architecture and how it is created through the use of computer software.
Will you present a digital model in the pavilion space?
Marcin Strzała: A digital model on a computer screen is a representation of a certain future reality, and similarly our installation is a representation of that representation. We fill the interior of the pavilion with a sculptural installation that uses the language of architecture in order to draw attention to our relationship with data and the existing tools for working with data. We investigate how imperfection these tools are, and talk about the fact that although they are seemingly objective, they can easily mislead and create a distorted image of reality. Based on this digital illusion, we make decisions with very real consequences.
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The guitarist Michał Milczarek has just finished his new album ‘Future: ON’, inspired by the work of sci-fi writer Stanisław Lem. The album is to be released on April 22nd in the form of sound art in collaboration with Mao Rui, author of the Chinese translation of ‘The Cyberiad’. The project is being supported by the Jazz Po Polsku Foundation and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Picture display
standardowy [760 px]
Polish Pavilion of Biennale Architettura 2023, graphic design: Martyna Wyrzykowska, photo: organizer's press materials
The idea of datament is based upon digital data. What kind of data? Where does it come from? What does it relate to?
JS: While we usually don’t give this much thought, we are constantly creating and collecting data on everything that surrounds us. Our living space today is created on two independent planes – one is real and material, while the other exists in the digital world and consists of data. We strive to pay attention to the intersection of these planes, the amount of data that is created, and above all – their reliability and adaptability to the material world. We have divided the world into regions according to how and what kind of data different regions produce and collect. From this list, we selected four countries – Hong Kong, Poland, Mexico, and Malawi. We focused on both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of digital data collected there, and in particular data pertaining to housing architecture, and alongside it, data regarding the number of inhabitants of cities and villages, their level of literacy, internet access, and so on.
MS: Architecture heavily relies on data – everything in architecture is countable and measurable and produced according to rules and regulations. One of its most codified areas is housing architecture. This allows visitors to relate to the installation through the prism of their personal experience.
Anna Barlik: An important element of our project, presented in the form of sculpture, is the idea of typicality and what that really means. We create models of typical households based on raw statistical data while omitting a plethora of other details.
JS: This shows how easy it is to trust information based upon generalised data, and how deceptive is our belief that “statistics don't lie.” Depending on how we use it, data can tell us an array of quite different things.
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The art of performance has always been a realm of innovation and a nexus of creativity. The artist is not only its author but the main artistic material as well. These Polish performance giants took their works to new levels and revolutionised their mediums.
AB: We want to shed light on these distortions through the medium of sculpture. This is what we confront the viewers with. At first, visitors might be confused, but with time may begin to understand these irregularities and their origin. Perhaps in the future they will begin to ask and think about them, and perhaps even question such distortions.
Is it really that easy for data to mislead us?
MS: Eurostat gathers data on the average number of people living in a single flat or house. And this is often the final information we get – the number of people per household. Nobody cares about the quality and functionality of this space, how large the bathroom or the kitchen might be, or what the rooms are like. Does this tell us anything about the quality of life, about housing issues? It [Eurostat] also, bizarrely, calculates the number of rooms per person. But this figure doesn’t take into account the surface area of that space.
AB: According to generalised data, the average household in Poland is 82.5 square metres. Hard to believe, isn’t it? This is the result of calculating the average size of all existing households in the country. Meanwhile, the average flat in Poland is about 52 square metres, and the average house –128 square metres. This distinction no longer exists in global terms!
The centre of your exhibition in Venice is a sculpture, whose impact on the viewer is, of course, rather difficult to describe. It’s best to experience it in person. How was it created?
AB: The sculpture consists of 2,000 metres of coloured steel profiles. We built it near Kraków, and it will be transported to Venice in parts and reassembled inside the pavilion. It’s probably the largest and heaviest structure ever presented there. The accompanying texts will provide a context for this sculpture. But I would like to stress that when it comes to this particular piece, the viewers’ reactions and behaviour will be particularly important. This is an object to confront, feel, and experience: audience members will be able to enter the installation, pass through it, and get lost in it. And observing people and their behaviour in the presence of this structure will in itself be a source of data – it will complement everything that we talk about.
Your project, datament, pays attention to the amount of digital data we collect, but also the ways in which we make use of this data. As such, it perfectly complements the ongoing debate on artificial intelligence. Although we all interact with AI on a daily basis, thanks to ChatGPT this contact has become somewhat more direct.
JS: Importantly, we don’t tell viewers how it is, we don’t say: “Look, we’ve found an error, and now we'll tell you all about it.” We want to ask questions, but we don’t want to provide ready-made answers. We want to address our relationship with data and how we collect and process it, and how carelessly we, as a civilisation, treat data. At the same time, we attach great importance and believe data, but we do not assess it critically. It’s the same with AI. In the ongoing debates about AI, we completely ignore the fact that ChatGPT learns from our statements and how and what we write. And we, as humans, are messy and inaccurate, we cheat and we lie. So we also generate massive amounts of false data and misinformation.
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Once they stood on the front-line of formal and moral revolution. They critically commented on the realities of the people’s democracy and of wild transformation. They were marginalised and neglected in the male dominated environment. Today, they comment on the remains of modern utopias and contemporary social reality. Let us present the most prominent Polish sculptresses of the past one hundred years.
What do you think is the purpose and meaning of large, international exhibitions that want to engage with such important, pressing manners? Do events such as the Architecture Biennale really have any driving power, can they bring about global change?
JS: We all have our own opinions on this. Can such exhibitions change the world? Of course not, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take place! They provide a space for individual and collective expression, an expression of freedom of speech and creative freedom – this is their uppermost value, and we should respect that.
AB: Perhaps such exhibitions don’t lead to immediate changes, but they have a huge impact on the perception of certain topics. They help people see certain problems, talk about them, ask questions, – and that’s a lot. In the long run, showing people a different perspective or a different way of doing things can be a factor for change.
MS: With events of this scale, there’s always a risk that they’ll come down to showcasing the inflated ego of artists, rather than focus on important themes. But at the same time, past events triggered forces of change and inspired future projects that redefined architecture. In retrospect, exhibitions such as Crystal Palace or the Eiffel Tower, although criticised at the time, constituted a significant voice in the discourse. From this perspective, even if 99 percent of projects or ideas shown at the Biennale expire, disappear, or prove irrelevant, a single project may turn out to be crucial for the future. And for that one percent, it is worth accepting all the “waste” associated with organising such exhibitions.
Translated from Polish by Culture.pl
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