Data stones

Data Stones explores the overlap of Chinese and European philosophies offered by data visualisation. A database of every message sent between two people, accumulated through the regular internet usage is transformed into a computer generated rock. These stones are produced procedurally from the mundane dialogue accumulated by the everyday use of instant messaging. I download thousands of messages sent between two people and sort them according to length, date and content (using Latent Dirichlet Allocation). These various means of processing extract patterns and sentiments in what never had any intrinsic order. The stone is treated like a graph, where the statistical patterns my sentiments determines its shape, and becomes an object for contemplation and speculation. Data Stones relying on the logic that if a system encoded a stone, then it can always theoretically be decoded. In contemplating these stones, we hope to crystallise our thoughts, and finds ourselves, staring back.