Datda Art

How data-driven outcomes are affected by transcendental ecosystems.

Our world is a hyper-complex one. How can we hope to understand global trends and the multilayered nature of reality? Is it even possible?

In this effort, we turn to data.

But how do we know what to make of the data? Isn’t it a bit like the famous turtle story?

The problem is this: it’s data all the way down!

To illustrate the point, we introduce: Datda! Datda means data and Dada art.

Dada Art was an art movement in the early twentieth century that rejected logic and embraced irrationality. As such, these artists incorporated random elements into their work.

Above all these artists rejected the cold logic of World War I, which was destroying Europe at the time. Safe within the borders of neutral Switzerland, the Dadaist questioned the worth of a rationality that would lead millions into the slaughterhouse of global war.

Datda art encourages us to play with the data, remix the data, rearrange the data, see what the data could become. Like the Dada artists, we’re skeptical of logic that leads to war and demands eternal profits.

Let’s try an example.

As you can see, there has been a big shift in wealth from the lower and middle classes to the upper class. The data doesn’t lie.

Using tools developed by our tech-wise art team, we want to randomly rearrange the data and see what it might look like instead:

Datda produced some interesting results! While the previous data painted a grim picture — with extreme inequality reducing more and more people to poverty — this new dataset imagines a world with much less disparity between the various economic classes.

Not bad!

One of the most famous of the Dada artists was poet Tristan Tzara. He left instructions for anyone who wanted to make a Dadaist poem.

How to Make a Dadaist Poem
(method by Tristan Tzara)

Let’s try something similar, but with Tweets! Using code and some data gathered from Twitter’s API, we can generate a Datda poem. Here’s a Datda poem created by combining tweets from Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

(another this from it’s)
Voted has Chag ballot voters.
To for Hanukkah.
“Box” poll cherish around us;
Same each! fake than to roughed!
Votes glimmers fraud non-resident many to blessings stuffing have votes ballots the shows “glitches” voting;
For changing year my matters
This we us of machine what.
Also harvesting sometimes.
But tested lights the word even pay.
The clarified.
Hope report ballot yours result! offer took up
Menorah of watchers all wow fraud.
Election happy.
Really family more the.
Celebrating those may republicans the massive remind all illegally also and others people

Beautiful! Now we, too, are endowed with a sensibility that is beyond the vulgar.

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