Live from 18 – 28 November 2019 at Katara Cultural Village and Qatar National Library, Naho Matsuda’s EVERY THING EVERY TIME will process data typically captured and published by ‘smart city’ technologies, consumer devices, private business, public institutions, and various media, using this data to create poetry based on our interactions with the urban environment. Through careful curation of data that describes events from the mundane to the marvellous, life in Qatar will be expressed as poetry on a mechanical split-flap display resembling the destination boards once found in railway stations.
Waseem Kotoub, Senior Programme Manager, Culture and Sport Programme, Gulf, explains that, “The commission in Qatar was a perfect fit for this year’s programme, in which we explore the growing role of Public Realm Art in our cities under the theme of people and places. For Qatar, with so many amazing public artworks, sculptural and architectural, we felt it great to bring a digital work in 2019. We believe that this work will create opportunities for young people to learn more about UK contemporary art and create new links between Qatar and the UK.”
Delving into the expanding scope of data collection, Matsuda’s work invites audiences to reflect on our increasingly complex relationship with technology and the unseen processes underpinning the ‘smart city’. Prompting wider discussion on how we perceive data and Smart City technologies.
