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Invitation to Ferment Data [3 workshops in Aarhus]
[Workshop 1] Fermenting Data: collecting and chopping
26 September 12.00 – 17.00
Andromeda
Gudrunsvej 78,
8220 Brabrand
[Workshop 2] Fermenting Data: categorising taste and colour
7 October 17.00 – 19.00
code&share
Høegh Guldbergs Gade 65B,
8000C Aarhus
[Workshop 3] Fermenting Data: sharing food sharing data
31 October 12.00 – 17.00
Sigrid Stue
Do you use Instagram or Facebook or other social media platforms? Are you automatically pressing “accept” when a “cookie” box shows up in your browser? Data are extracted and given away, but rarely it is possible for us to trace who uses this data, how and for what ends.
Fermenting Data is a three-part workshop where we ferment seasonal veggies from Sigrids Garden in Gellerup, and explore data practices. While preparing our ferments we will talk about and think with the complex and important world of data. You might already know about torshi, kimchee, sauerkraut or the simple pickled cucumbers. How about you join us for fermenting with vegetables and data, and sign up for a tasty, local and healthy series of workshops to experience how the micro universe of fermentation can help us think about data and their influence on our daily lives!
To register for the workshop send an email to info[at]fermentingdata.net with 'Fermenting Data workshops' in the title of the message.
Fermenting Data invites you to explore fermentation* and digitization* together. Working with microbes, vegetables, minerals, jars, sensors and other technologies, we will experiment with these two processing techniques to play and discover how fermenting can infuse data and how data can become part of fermentation.
We will produce ferments of different kinds, so bring your cabbages, carrots and other vegetables as they will be our companions in fermenting. Bring cameras, audio recorders and other sensing devices to start process of collecting your data.
You might then ask, why do it? What is this fermenting data about?
Our answers: we want to ferment data because we are curious and because we don’t know what fermenting data could be! There are so many ways to ferment data that need to be discovered still. We want to include as many of them as there are us fermenting data! Join us in this adventure and have some fun together as we invent fermenting data practices.
/* Fermentation is an ancient technique of preserving food that has been used in many cultures for hundreds of years. More scientific definition describes it as a metabolic process during which microorganism or enzyms change composition of complex organic compounds into simple ones such as sugar into alcohol C2 H6 O or carbo dioxide CO2.
/* Digitization is the process of conversion of analogue data into digital format.
/* Data is a formal representation of relations and things that exist in the world. Data is necessary for computers to carry out calculations.
You might then ask further, why is this important?
Our answers: You probably heard about digitisation, digitalization, digital transformation, Artificial Intelligence and big data. These are all processes where data, also known as the new oil, is the main element. In fact these processes cannot exist without data which is produced everyday by things and people. However, those (us and others) who are source of this data have little or limited access to data. It might be because we don’t know how to access it, or simply because we don’t know what data we produce. But we believe that as generating data is a common practice, processing data should also be common and accessible to all. This project is our way to reclaim data by producing, collecting, categorising and visualising data.
During the workshop we will agitate data processing to explore and re-process data while chopping cabbages and massaging them with salt before they are carefully left to effervescence. And as we do it we will ask what metabolism of data looks like, what kind of energy is released, and how unrest is part of data fermentations revealing the entangled nature of data that while being captured engages practices of deep observation and sensing that take time and take over bodies. Fermenting Data is a series of workshops that takes cultural and natural processes as guiding principle and combines data and fermentation to explore datafication together with microbes, vegetables, minerals and jars. And with each other.
The workshops are supported by Humans and IT research programme at Aarhus University.
Tags: blog, curating