“Our lives today are unimaginable without databases.”
--Andreas Kratky
“Processed data is information. Processed information is knowledge. Processed knowledge is Wisdom.”
--Ankala V. Subbarao
Databases pervade our world—from the macro to the micro—underpinning the functions of global governance to the minuteness of our personal lives, and everything in between. “The complex of computers and databases,” says Andreas Kratky, “embodies the way modern society thinks and acts.” Database systems are used to interpret patterns that suggest criminal inclinations and identify purchasing habitudes to predict consumer behavior. Far from neutral, these systems are inherently interpretive and expressive. In this polymathic pizza session, Professor Kratky will discuss his forthcoming work, Database Poetics - The Aesthetics and Ethics of Database Art, which sees database aesthetics coexistent with the assumed neutral, quantitative worlds of analytics and surveillance. This genuine polymathic discussion will examine the metamorphosis of data from surveillance and analytics to art and the aesthetic, illuminating the interpretative and qualitative values inherent in all computational structures and technologies.
