Deep Data (the elevator)

Deep Data (2020) was originally conceived for a competition on the theme of “mutual aid”, a phrase first popularized by anarchist writer Peter Kropotkin, who argued that “cooperation, not competition, was the driving mechanism behind evolution, through biological mutualism." Within the context of Covid pandemic and disaster capitalism in general, we saw that the idea of “mutual aid” was coopted into a calculable and profitable concept, to support such financial concepts like “social capital.” Meanwhile, the phrase “deep data” was first invented by the financial service industry during the 1980’s in connection with the FICO score. The FICO score, which was originally meant to determined the credit-worthiness of a potential borrower, today constitutes the principle example upon which a global credit movement have been built. Within this movement, deep data refers to the principle of small number of information-rich data streams having the capability of yielding greater business values at a lower costs. As such, deep data helps the credit industry to determine who can access living essentials such as water, food, health care, and energy. Private and public institutions both use deep data to create algorithms and procure what they call “customized customer engagement.”

Deep Data (The Elevator) exposes the pathologic expansion of contemporary capitalist discourse. It invites you to step out of the sicitzopphreaia, step into an analog world of miscellaneous deep data and interact with it by using a 12,000 years old technology called farming. To honor true mutual aid, it suggest that you to pick a seed, grow and share its fruits.