Age of Wonderland - Big Data, Big Dada

A Provocative Seminar with Age of Wonderland fellows:
Paz Bernaldo, Branly Lopez, Budi Prakoza, and speakers of Tactical Tech, DatActive, IJsfontein and Hacking Habitat.

How to take an activist attitude towards big data corporations? How can we view data as something that we can tap into to learn about ourselves and see a different angle in the discussion, and how we an attribute data to push for social innovation? These questions have moved from being niche discussions to topics designers, artists and engineers are working on, often in multi-disciplinary teams to cover the breadth of knowledge and skills needed to challenge global issues. We discuss the above and many other questions with Age of Wonderland fellows and many more great guests: Fieke Jansen (Tactical Tech), Jan Willem Huisman (IJsfontein) Kersti Wissenbach, (DatActive) and Ine Gevers (Hacking Habitat). We will be guided through these questions by Danielle Arets (Design Academy Eindhoven).

The promise of big and open data has rebooted a tradition of positivist enlightened thinking, assuming that the analysis and application of large amounts of information will lead to a ‘better’ world. Easy data collection systems have enabled the quantification of our every move, activity and thought, and as such, has produced an endless repository of information. 
Data technology is able to visualise and crosslink matter, which would otherwise never be related to each other. This raises ethical questions on the mining of information, its ownership and the responsibility that goes with safeguarding our privacy. Anyone or any company with the access to data or the technology to ‘create’ data can become a revolutionary power. If data is the new gold, oil or solar energy we urgently need to explore new ways to discuss such topics.

The seminar is part of the Incubation Week from 23 May – 1 June in which the Age of Wonderland fellows 2016 present and start their projects. During their stay in Eindhoven they will establish new kinds of collaborations, develop their visions on social innovation and co-creation and explore knowledge exchange with local companies, artists, scientists and other creatives. The concepts, ideas and experiments that will develop are on show to the international public during Dutch Design Week.