TWELVE NODES

2019;
12 marble blocks, 12 e-ink screens, custom software, custom circuit boards, patch panels and patch cords, Ethereum blockchain network.

'Twelve Nodes' highlights the importance of ethical treatment of personal data and proposes the concept of Fair Data as a framework for better regulation and control of data usage, aiming to address concerns about consent, ownership, and economic value while promoting responsible data handling by organizations.

'Twelve Nodes' is a collaborative research project presented in a form of video installation. It concerns itself with current issues surrounding the ethical treatment of personal data, speaking to the urgent need of more regulation, considering the large-scale misuses of geopolitical scale that have occurred over the past years. The work introduces the concept of Fair Data, a framework and guideline for organisations for treatment of personal data. Fair Data establishes standards for consent, collection, and ownership of personal data as well as recognising a fair economic value and usage of data. The twelve fragments of the work reference the twelve tables in Roman law, which form the basic foundation for civil law, the most widely used legal system today. Here, they form the basis for a new code that incorporates the evolvement of technology and its ethical implications.

Twelve Nodes provokes a public discussion on the design of a new legal framework to perhaps come to a collective and democratic understanding of how personal data and the rights attached to it should be treated. Democratic participation and networked cultural production are becoming part of the movement, with the aim of building new kinds of literacy for digital understanding and participation. Alongside its protocol and platform development Fair Data Society insists on the need for new forms of expression and new artistic practices to address the most urgent questions of our time, and seeks to educate and empower the digital subjects of today to become active, engaged, and effective digital citizens of the internet.