Embodied Histories and the Weight of Data

Every day, each of us is adding to our own immense data inventory. Mobile phone records, social network conversations, purchase histories—all of these things are being stored, often without our knowledge or express permission. In this presentation, the speaker will discuss how these data histories can be accessed, visualized, and explored. He'll show a variety of projects, including work from the New York Times R&D Group, the 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan, and Popular Science magazine. He'll walk through collaborative processes, admit to a series of spectacular failures, and ultimately show how custom software tools can be made to solve extraordinary data problems.