DATAS residency: Tamara Kametani

The residency is a part of the DATAS: The Data and the Sovereign, an international art and research programme that brings together artists, theorists, and technologists to explore how digital infrastructures, AI, and algorithmic governance impact personal and political sovereignty. In an age where big data corporations and algorithmic systems increasingly shape global political and social dynamics, DATAS uses the lens of art to challenge the normalisation of surveillance, data extraction, and digital control.

In her practice and research, Tamara Kametani engages with the topics of border politics, forms of surveillance and resistance, and the shifting relationship between digital and physical environments by using found digital material, online mapping apps, satellite imagery, and geolocation data. She is currently developing a new project, in which she is exploring the phenomenon of Null Island: a point in the Atlantic Ocean that, despite having no physical form, contains an abundance of data due to errors and glitches in geographic coordinate systems. By creating a free, web-based application that digitally relocates users to Null Island’s coordinates, she wishes to reveal its potential to combat surveillance and reclaim data liberty, which seems especially crucial in an era of increasing reliance on digital services and inevitable data collection.