Data Shop

2017
Installation
metal structure, cans, personal data on pen drives, digital prints on paper
Variable dimensions



Data Shop is a shop-like installation, which speculates with the idea having a shop that sells, and at the same time, stores personal data. The artists have put on the pen drives their personal data extracted from Facebook, Google Takeout, Visa and Mastercard, Fitbit, Estonian ID-card, and surveilled themselves with a video camera for 24h. The pen drives were carefully canned and labeled accordingly as the real products.
For the Pixelache festival will be released a new product range with the personal data from Booking.com, Paypal, and Netflix.
The aim is to bring up the topic of data market that is exponentially growing and how users are constantly exploited. Our data is collected, used, sold, stolen and traded constantly. On one hand, Data Shop confronts the audience with the questions about the value of personal data, and on another, the value of an artwork and the relation between them.
The cans are definitely a hint to Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup, whose work was an attempt to convert an artwork to a product. Also the personal data has a connection to Piero Manzoni’s work Artist’s Shit from 1961. Manzoni explained the content of art piece as his personal DNA. Likewise with Data Shop contains artists digital DNA. Personal data can be seen as residual products of data bodies of the contemporary time.
The cans are definitely a hint to Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup, whose work was an attempt converting an artwork to a product. Also the personal data has a connection to Piero Manzoni’s work Artist’s Shit from 1961. Mazoni explained the content of art piece as his personal DNA. Likewise with Data Shop contains online-me DNA. Personal data can be seen as residual products of data bodies of the contemporary time.

Production was supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
Research residency related to the project supported by THE SPUR / ETACEC 16-18 “, project subsidized by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and Bòlit, Center for Contemporary Art, Girona.

Data Shop is part of Abelló Museum art collection, acquired by the Commission of the National Art Collection of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

Exhibited:
Group exhibition BIG D@T@! BIG MON€Y! curated by Michael Arzt, HALLE 14 in Leipzig, Germany (26 Sep – 5 Dec’20)
Group show E scap ES, Association of Electronic Art and Experimental, Centro C. Galileo, Madrid, Spain (20 Feb – 15 March’ 20)
Nemo biennale “Autonomie Zero” curated by Gilles Alvarez and Dominique Moulon, Cité internationale des arts Paris, France (21st Nov – 1st Dec’ 19).
Group show Breaking the 5th Wall, Pixelache festival, Helsinki, Finland (20th – 26th May’19)
Solo Show Surveillance Capitalism, Sodų 4 gallery, Vilnius, Lithuania (12th Dec – 26th Dec’18)
Group Show at the Digital Design Weekend, Victoria and Albert Museum, London. UK (22nd – 23th September’18)
Solo Show Data Soup, ArtDealProject, Barcelona, Spain (12th Dec’17 – 30th Jan’18)
Solo Show Data Soup, Digitaliseum, Malmö, Sweden (21th April – 3rd June’17)
Group show PERRO curated by Javier Galán, Hobusepea Gallery, Tallinn. Estonia (17th Mar – 3rd Apr’17)
Group show Supermarket Art Fair represented by Espai Sant Marc, Stockholm. Sweden (23th – 26th Mar’17)