The term data double denotes information generated by and collected from users of networked communications to construct relational databases in marketing and other domains. Each subject (user) of this surveillance-panoptical system inevitably informs and objectifies all other subjects. Social media experiences are based on our continuously “tracked” engagement. Surveillance functions across written and spoken language, biometrics, geolocation, and visual and behavioral patterns. This text is primarily concerned with visual media and its production and (re)circulation as the accumulation of data through uploading, viewing, liking, commenting, remixing, and sharing. The article explores how selected media artists reflect upon the potential of recirculating information to reveal our data doubles and the surveillance-panoptical system.

The 1970s and early 1980s saw the emergence of the microcomputer and the domain of personal computing. Within that context, some artists were working with such digital systems, contributing to these developments in various ways. This article reflects upon one such artist’s involvement in these developments and how his initial interest in computational processes allowed him to explore a series of formal concerns, and how this then evolved into an engagement with more conceptual and philosophical concerns around the ontology of people and technology. The article also considers the value of undertaking creative work in interdisciplinary research environments.

ABSTRACT The authors present their collaborative investigation into the creative applications of liquid crystal elastomers. They explore the process of making these new materials as well as the question of how artists and scientists can work together to develop new materials and to use them in artistic or architectural applications.