Data is like plastic, incredibly useful and horrible at the same time. Since the launch of the iPhone, we’ve gone from being mostly anonymous to almost constantly tracked. An abhorrent thought for most of us. I make handbuilt art about the future of personal digital data. I’m naturally tidy, hyper organized and look for ways to sort, arrange and assemble a massive number of parts into a well-ordered pattern. Perhaps data collection is a self-soothing technique, a way to calibrate details about myself and begin to understand who I am. In the absence of real feedback, many, many bits of personal data provide comfort and reassurance. A reaffirmation of self. I want data to feel personal, to overcome the repulsion most of us hold about data surveillance. Numeric data is hard for our brains to absorb, we can’t make sense of large numbers, but we do have an ability to understand patterns, especially colorful patterns, intuitively.

BIO:

Laurie Frick uses personal data to examine what we can know about ourselves. In her hand-built works she experiments with how we will consume the mass of data increasingly captured about us. Evidence of her engineering background and long-history in high-tech are seen in the detailed explanations of how this future will unfold. Her work about the future of data were recently featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, Atlantic and Wired Magazine; she has been invited to talk at Google, SXSW, Stanford and TEDx. Recipient of numerous residencies and awards, including Samsung Research, Yaddo, Bemis and Facebook. She holds an MFA from the New York Studio School, an MBA from University of Southern California and studied at NYU’s ITP program that melded art and technology into her current data work. Frick’s artwork has been exhibited in museums, galleries and art spaces across North America, including Musee de la Civilization in Quebec City, Science Museum in Oklahoma City, Pavel Zoubok in New York and Edward Cella in Los Angeles. Represented by GF Contemporary, Blueprint Gallery, Michele Mariaud and Ivester Contemporary galleries.

Born in Los Angeles, she lives and works in Austin, Texas.