Processing Post: Database Episteme

Charles & Ray Eames’ educational cartoon, expounding on the wonders of the newly invented electronic calculator, archives a mindset of the digital age that seems more in context after reading Tim Sherratt’s article on EJ Brady. Ideology aside, the inspiration for  the White Australia initiative  was Brady’s phrase “Australia Unlimited,” a notion graphically represented in a map with demonstrating the square mileage in comparison with the old world countries. By giving Australians a pride in the scale an grandeur of the nation, Brady’s propagandistic  phrase bolstered  radical exclusion policies and pushed the national goal of modernization and settlement of the “wastes.”

It intrigues me to think about the push to fill the vast digital frontiers as an extension of western colonialist ways of thinking. All of these readings and media types seem to contain a forward looking stance at technology of data collection with underlying examination of the ideologies informing it. The information Machine (the early crude calculator) is pointed out to be perfect at performing it’s stated function. Human operators need to be capable of feeding the correct data. I recall elementary school teachers stating some some version of this numerous times. This challenge has become the fascination of designers over the history of computing. How data is presented is influenced by the original goals of why it was gathered. however, it can be remixed and made more intuitive by fresh eyes and a new way of thinking about it. As Sherratt examines, open data and can gradually it improve our ability to do “old things better… developing new forms of publication that immerse text and narrative within a rich contextual soup brewed from the holdings of cultural institutions.”

While Charles & Ray Eames demonstrate how the caveman memorize the most data was able to more technology and civilization forward, The data we gather and create is only as good as human’s ability to present and absorb in an age of information overload. While this becomes linked to the discussion of aesthetic choices in presentation of data, it’s important to continue questioning the imperfect human component behind to gathering and and inputing of data and the human transforming said data into knowledge and hopefully wisdom.

* Now on an unrelated judgmental note: The crude vintage animation and opening scenes of “The Information Machine” got my hopes up. They  were then dashed by a lackluster script that played out. This educational film has nothing on Saul Blass’ “Why Man Creates,” the best animated piece in this genre.