Dietmar Offenhuber reflects on synthetic data’s break from reality, relates meaning to material use, and embraces data as a speculative and often non-digital artifact.

Dietmar and Kimberly discuss data as a representation of reality; divorcing content from meaning; data settings vs. data sets; synthetic data quality and ground truth; data as a speculative artifact; the value in noise; data materiality and accountability; rethinking data literacy; Instagram data realities; non-digital computing and going beyond statistical analysis.

Dietmar Offenhuber is a Professor and Department Chair of Art+Design at Northeastern University. Dietmar researches the material, sensory and social implications of environmental information and evidence construction.

Related Resources

• Shapes and Frictions of Synthetic Data (paper): https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517241249390
• Autographic Design: The Matter of Data in a Self-Inscribing World (book): https://autographic.design/
• Reservoirs of Venice (project): https://res-venice.github.io/
• Website: https://offenhuber.net/

A transcript of this episode is here.