Tactical Disinformation: Interrogation of Data Politics through Noise in Interactive Media Installations

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the potential for contemporary interactive media art to interrogate and subvert the data mining practices that encode and exploit user data in the big data economy. Specifically the author argues that this can be accomplished through the exacerbation of data mining operations and the provision of tactical disinformation—useless, fake, and alternative information, an amplification of the “noise” (the unsanctioned elements) that highlights the nonneutrality fallibility, and inadequacy of data. The author explores this through a Brechtian methodology and an examination of three of his media installations to show how they estrange us from normalized information systems to highlight their limits.