The Data and the Sovereign

Data is measured, collected, analysed, interpreted, mined, sent up to the cloud, and stored. Data is considered “big” if it is virtually uncountable, and has often been described as the “oil” of the twenty-first century. Data is a resource, but not a natural one, although the dealings with it have a significant ecological footprint and are currently forming various landscapes. Data’s increasing ubiquity is dependent on the planetary scale of computation, and vice versa. Digitisation and the ongoing development of data storage techniques increase its presence, use, and as a direct consequence, its abuse.