Mar 28, 2010
database obscure
I have been looking into databases lately as part of a chapter in my exegesis on the videodefunct system. In a post by Sean Cubitt titled ‘Further notes on the history of invisibility‘, I noted a reference to databases in relation to the effect they are having on time and space. Quoted from the post:
By contrast, the fundamental cultural formation of the network era is the database, and its principle is no longer geometrical but arithmetic. The database is dimensionless: it has taken the logic of converting time into space (the graph, the calendar) and eradicated space as well. The database is decreasingly visible, hidden behind the screen displaying the results of a specific search. Thus the invisibility of database-driven sites to search engines.
More here in Cubitt’s post ‘Workplace Media’. Connections can be made here to with the mapping project ‘Locative Painting’.
Also, connected with this is ‘Data Management as a signifying practice’, David Gugerli, ETH Zurich
November 13, 2009, Amsterdam