Speculative space: Artists working with data
Data can only tell a selective story, no matter how comprehensive or authoritative its collection or presentation. There are always gaps and elisions and alternative interpretations. Working with data in the creative arts foregrounds the process of interpretation and the tension between authority and speculation that comes along with it. In Mirror Sydney, a writing, mapping and illustration project about the urban environment that I began in 2012, I have drawn on a combination of information from archives and more speculative or associative forms of data: rumours and myths, encounters and memories.