🎤 TED talk of the month

With October and Halloween comes the Day of the Dead or All Saints' Day, depending on where you're from. More than just a reason to don a trendy costume, it's an occasion to honor and remember the dead, and our recollections of them - happy, sad, or bittersweet - are often our only way to reconnect with those we love that are now gone. This is part of what our very own Pau Garcia discussed in this 11-minute TED talk he gave in Vancouver, back in April. No spoilers, but he talks about our work using generative AI to recreate images of past and undocumented memories and the importance of remembrance as a bearer of meaning in our lives. 

Note that our Citizens’ Office of Synthetic Memories closed its doors three weeks ago, after an amazing few months in the Barcelona Museum of Design, but you can read about it here. Big shoutout to everyone involved, and stay tuned for our upcoming work on Synthetic Memories! 

🏛️ Exhibition of the month 

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Perhaps the anthem of screens and everything digital, as they infiltrate every corner of our lives, making us wonder what is the truth or a mere illusion. For some, this brings on a sense of technological horror - the chilling feeling that emerges when the use of new technologies breaks down our experience of reality. In the current exhibit at the Leeum Museum in Seoul, “Dream Screen”, 26 Asian artists explore this through works of video art laid out such as to evoke the famous haunted Winchester House in San Jose, California.

🪦 Cemetery of the month

Nothing like a stroll through the Google Graveyard to get you in the mood. OK, it’s not that scary: we’re talking about Killed by Google, an open list of all the services, products, devices and apps put forth by Google, and then eventually discontinued. Do you remember using Google+? Neither do we - but we do remember the memes.

👹 Nightmares of the month

Check out these eerie, high-definition AI-generated video creations by Bennett Waisbren, an abstract artist whose (weirdly addictive) twisted visuals are anything but soothing. And if you're craving for more, you can also head to his TikTok and Instagram. Enter at your own risk!

🧙‍♀️ Witchy data of the month

You’ll be happy to hear that we’re not the only data lovers with an, errr, penchant for the occult. A research group at the University of Edinburgh has built an interactive map of all known residence, detention, trial, and death locations for accused witches in Scotland between 1563 and 1736 - and you can look up specific witches by name here.

😈 Hellscape of the month

This data viz will take you to hell and back - quite literally, because it maps out Dante’s Divine Comedy into the different worlds and spaces he mentions, as he progresses through hell, purgatory, and paradise. Every canto is read out in the original Italian, and, if possible, gives you references to artworks of the specific region or landmark described in the text. Buon cammino! 

Well, that’s all from us for now, but we hope this newsletter brought some magic to your inbox. Next month, we’ll be back with more treats - no tricks, we promise. Until then, we leave you with this little incantation:

Double, double toil and trouble;

From our data-brewing bubble x