Photo: Regula Bearth

The DIZH Public Data Lab is not merely a data project. It also aims to create a public sphere and build a relationship with civil society. That’s what the “Public” in its name stands for. The ideas behind this approach are being developed by Marcel Bleuler, Head of the Institute for Contemporary Art Research at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), together with colleagues. 

Marcel, why are you taking part in the Public Data Lab (PDL)?

Marcel: I’m interested in how societal knowledge is produced based on data, and – based on that – how policies are defined and decisions ultimately made. Technological progress enables us to measure with increasing precision and to combine datasets in new ways. This allows us to generate highly nuanced insights into society. At the same time, data is becoming increasingly central to how societal developments are shaped. Questions such as how we measure, what we measure, and what gaps emerge or persist are therefore gaining substantial, if not existential, significance. This is precisely where the PDL comes in. From an artistic perspective, it’s particularly the societal questions that come into focus: What does it mean for us when data becomes so influential? How can civil society relate to highly specialised and abstracted data processes that take place behind closed doors, in expert circles and public administration?

Do you have an example of a process where the relationship with civil society is particularly important?

The annual timetable change in mid-December is a good example, in my view. I grew up in a rural area on the edge of the Canton of Zurich, and the timetable change was always an exciting moment. From my perspective as a teenager, it felt like realities were being created that I couldn’t fully understand: Why are bus and train connections cancelled at certain times? Why are new connections introduced at times that seem to serve no one? This is one of those moments when, as a member of civil society, I feel that decisions are being made based on observations and measurements that are not, or only partially, accessible to me. Of course, organisations like ZVV or SBB can justify and explain such decisions. But with evidence-based arguments and educational approaches, they are unlikely to reach teenagers who feel left out.

I believe that many people felt similarly excluded or disconnected during the pandemic. In that context, we all probably experienced how emotionally charged data-driven decisions can be. For some, data represented an undeniable truth from which logical steps could be derived. Others felt neither represented in the data nor the decisions based on it. And yet others distrusted the data altogether or dismissed it as fake. That’s why we need to pay attention to the affective dimension if innovations in the field of data are to be sustainable and if we want to avoid a societal divide in relation to increasingly complex data processes. The societal relationship to data processes must be nurtured in order to build trust.

What is your role within the PDL?

Together with Julia Weber, I lead the core group of the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) within the PDL. This group includes two professors from the field of design, Sara Owens and Sophia Prinz, and a professor from the field of art, Felix Stalder. Currently, we’re exploring the points of connection for artistic or design-based processes and how we can create a meaningful framework for them. The next step will be to initiate artistic engagements in collaboration with the University of Zurich, the Cantonal Statistical Office Zurich, and Opendata.ch.

What is your contribution to the PDL?

My background is in art and art theory, and I’ve also worked in the fields of peacebuilding and social transformation. My approach is not rooted in the exact sciences but shaped by a focus on cultural and societal dynamics. Specifically, my role in the PDL is to build relationships and trust between the different actors and their domains. In the PDL, we have experts in data, data collection and interpretation. Then we have representatives from public administration, who ensure that the innovations developed by the experts are applied and have an impact on policy. And we have the association Opendata.ch, which advocates for open access to data and information. These actors form the structural-functional level. My contribution is complementary: I focus on the cultural and societal level that is needed to establish a connection to civil society beyond educational approaches.

“Especially to technological research, art and design can play a complementary role.”

Marcel Bleuler

What is your goal?

For me, there is an overarching goal that arises from our unique constellation: We have the opportunity to collaborate with data specialists, public administration and the association Opendata.ch. But this only works if we approach the collaboration as a dialogue. We don’t need to master each other’s fields – I, coming from the arts, won’t become a statistician or a policymaker through my work at the PDL – but we all need to be able to engage in meaningful exchange. This also means that we must communicate our positions clearly and accessibly, so that others can understand and engage with them. What I hope to gain from this collaboration is the ability to explore, in a comprehensive way, how societal knowledge is generated based on data and in connection with politics, administration, and civil society.

Additionally, I want to create an environment for artistic work that engages with digitality and data. There are artists with exciting and critical perspectives who lack access to data specialists. I hope that, through the PDL, they will be able to enter into dialogue with researchers and with civil society and that this will help them develop their work.

Where do you see challenges?

Precisely in the dialogue within the project team (laughs). We all bring great potential, but also limitations, shaped by our disciplines; for example, art often has something elitist about it, and science too. Public administration operates within rigid frameworks. One of the challenges is that part of what we do is only partially communicable, or that our influence on the relationship with civil society is limited. These limitations pose a challenge not only for our internal dialogue but also for the dialogue with civil society. The relationship with civil society is not a given. We have to create it, just as we have to build trust. To do so, we need to find out where trust-building can begin and how it can work in the context of highly specialised and abstracted processes.

You bring an artistic perspective to the PDL. What do you think art can do that science cannot?

I don’t believe that art and science are mutually exclusive. Art can play a complementary role to science. From my collaborations with social scientists, I know that they work within clearly defined methodological frameworks, whereas art and design allow for more freedom in that regard. This leads to different forms of knowledge, which often address affective, relational, or symbolic dimensions. That’s why art and design can complement technological research. They open a door to the societal negotiation of innovation. I don’t mean that they serve science communication or knowledge transfer. Rather, they enable a form of engagement with complex data processes that doesn’t necessarily centre on rational understanding. Counterintuitive, playful, and intuitive dynamics can emerge. In my view, such engagements, which are essentially forms of appropriation, are crucial for making an invention or research outcome socially viable. The space for this kind of engagement isn’t simply given; it has to be created. And that’s precisely where the arts can make a significant contribution.

What are your ideas for how art and design can help foster understanding of indicators?

I challenge this question because it strongly implies an educational perspective. But as I mentioned earlier, my aim is not for art and design to convey rational knowledge. Rather, they invite us to think of “understanding” in a more complex way. Understanding is not simply about knowledge. It can also develop through direct interaction and attentiveness to one another. I would define understanding as the ability to engage with something without fully grasping it – and that’s a capacity art and design are particularly good at nurturing.

I have several concrete ideas for how art and design can promote this more nuanced understanding of indicators: Some artists explore data as an aesthetic phenomenon, by visualising it or translating it into sound. What I find especially compelling is the sensory access to data, which can be resistant or challenging, but is also very tangible. Others, for example !Mediengruppe Bitnik, engage with data gaps and attempt to subvert data processes. Others focus on data generation itself, proposing alternative ways of collecting data. Verity-Jane Keefe, for example, works with deindustrialised areas in the UK, not through expert measurements or observations, but from the perspective of the people who live there. It’s not about a reproducible methodology, but about finding moments of insight that are not repeatable, yet reveal what matters most to those communities.
And one more thing I can share: we’ll be collaborating with students from the new Master’s programme Art:ificial Studies in Fine Arts, which focuses strongly on the societal dimensions of digitality and technology.

Marcel Bleuler is Head of the Institute for Contemporary Art Research at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). After completing his PhD in Contemporary Art History in 2013, he conducted transdisciplinary research at the intersection of art and conflict transformation in Georgia and Burkina Faso (2014–2017), as well as in the field of cultural practices that address social polarisation and foster encounters (Germany and Austria, 2018–2021). His interest lies in dialogical practices that negotiate social and ecological relationships and seek to initiate processes of transformation. This interest is also central to the doctoral programme Transforming Environments, which he launched in 2021 and currently leads at the Department of Fine Arts (ZHdK). His publications focus on socially engaged art, dialogical aesthetics, and the relationship between art and activism. Marcel is a permanent Fellow at the Collegium Helveticum and a member of the Research Board of the Istituto Svizzero in Rome.