katherine behar
katherine behar: this.construction();

Title: Pings (from "Modeling Big Data")
Media: Video. 41 seconds (loop).
Year: 2014.

Exhibited:

    Solo exhibitions:
  • "Katherine Behar: Backups." Mazmanian Gallery, Framingham State University, Framingham, MA. September 3–25, 2019.
  • "Katherine Behar: Data's Entry," curated by Fatma Colakoglu and Ulya Soley. Pera Museum, Istanbul, Turkey. September 8–October 16, 2016.
  • "Katherine Behar: E-Waste," curated by Dima Strakovsky. Tuska Center for Contemporary Art, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY. November 6–28, 2014 (Premiere)
  • "Katherine Behar: E-Waste." Eyedrum Art and Music Gallery, Atlanta, GA. April 3-May 3, 2015 (Traveling venue)
  • "Katherine Behar: E-Waste," curated by George Fifield. Boston Cyberarts Gallery, Boston, MA. November 7–December 20, 2015 (Traveling venue)

    • Group exhibitions:
  • "Homecoming," curated by Sarah Watson. Leubsdorf Gallery, New York, NY, USA, April 2017
  • "I Wasn't Just Saying What You Wanted to Hear..." curated by Molly Mac. The Alice, Seattle, WA, USA, March 2016
  • "Iceberg's Tongue," curated by James Weingrod and Baris Gokturk. YoungArts Foundation Studio, Miami, FL, USA. December 2014
  • "Re:Collect," curated by Melanie Manos. Re:View Contemporary, Detroit, MI, USA. December 2014

Credits:

Set Stylist: Lorraine Rudin
Sound Designer: Lem Jay Ignacio.

This project is supported in part by a PSC-CUNY Award, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York.

art: Pings (from "Modeling Big Data")

Statement

"Pings" is part of "Modeling Big Data," a series of four videos in which I embody "big data." Big data is any set of data that is too big for human comprehension and must be processed by computer. Data, or raw measurements, are captured in all digital transactions. It is an increasingly common practice to not only produce data, but to retain it, storing it until it can be ordered into meaningful information. "Modeling Big Data" questions how computer culture favors hoarding, overproduction, and excess.

In "Modeling Big Data," I perform as an obese data body, a body so stuck in the cycle of generating data that it is swollen and overcome by its own data glut. I perform four data gestures: clicking, buffering, caching, and pinging. All of the videos are shot in color on monochromatic sets. The two red scenes, "Clicks" and "Buffering," represent data gestures that users typically experience; the two grey scenes, "Cached" and "Pings," represent backend data gestures that are concealed from most users.

Other videos in the "Modeling Big Data" series:

Modeling Big Data: Cached Modeling Big Data: Clicks Modeling Big Data: Buffering