what is the public data lab?
The public data lab is an experimental ✨ space ✨ for critical, creative and socially engaged research with and about ↬ data, digital media, software, platforms, infrastructures and the internet.
what does the lab do?
We explore how digital technologies shape ways of knowing and responding to societal issues. As well as critically studying digital technologies in society, we also aim to grow critical technical practices - seeing how critical reflection can modify technical practices.
Often our projects involve changing how issues are understood or how methods configure ways of knowing the world. For example:
- With the Field Guide to “Fake News” the focus of inquiries with journalists expanded from reporting on the truth or falsity of claims to reporting on the platforms, algorithms and infrastructures enabling their circulation and monetisation.
- With Save Our Air focus shifted from quantifying particulate matter to attending to the settings in which air pollution arose or became an issue.
- In the forestscapes project soundscaping is a method not just for individual immersion in curated recreations of nature, but a collective practice of unsettling and reconsidering nature-culture relations and how ecologies are mediatised, commodified, laundered and contested.
We predominantly organise our activities through workshops and events. These can lead to the development of methods, tools, investigations, artworks, reports and other things. Rather than focusing mainly on research outputs and findings, our projects also aim to nurture collective inquiry, care, imagination, solidarity and to make space for other kinds of interventions.
how does the lab work?
The lab is a lightweight, distributed, project-based space for growing critical, creative and socially engaged digital research. It aims to support a mushroom network 🍄🟫 of learning and exchange across different groups and communities of practice. It was designed to be easy to maintain and to evolve in relation to the capacities of its contributors.
It was set up by researchers who had worked on various projects together as a way to keep in touch across places, to share work in progress, to co-develop tools, methods and approaches, and to collaborate with journalists, activists, civil society groups, artists and others.
The lab gathers around hands-on, practice-oriented workshops and sprints. Sometimes these gatherings lead to the development of public outputs and materials - from field guides to media investigations to soundscaping tools. We also develop collaborations across our classes through engaged research-led teaching activities with researchers and students.
The lab is organised around:
- projects - with their associated events, materials, tools and resources
- contributors - people who contribute to projects
- groups - communities and organisations involved in projects
An ongoing infrastructuring the lab project currently led by Jonathan W. Y. Gray takes care of what holds the lab together and gives it a collective memory across projects and activities, including its websites, documentation, tools, servers, spaces and materials. It supports activities through which contributors keep in touch, share work and regather in different configurations across projects.
how can I propose a collaboration?
If you’re a journalist, artist, activist, researcher or civil society group and you’d like to propose a collaboration with the lab, feel free to write to us with:
- what you’d like to do
- questions, materials, links and/or starting points
- what you’d like to receive support with
- any other projects that could serve as reference or inspiration
- whether you’d be open to working with students in the context of engaged research-led teaching
We’re especially keen on projects where we can make a meaningful contribution and there is some space for experimentation, creative approaches and critical reflection.
Projects should ideally involve learning and exchange across at least two different organisations, groups or communities. We appreciate collaborations that create exchanges between academic and non-academic organisations, communities and practices.
We are limited by the capacities of our contributors, but welcome suggestions for collaborations that align with our ways of working.
how can I contribute to the lab?
The lab gathers through its events, workshops and projects. There are sometimes open calls for participation which we post on our website and social media. If you’d be interested in contributing to the lab’s activities, feel free to get in touch.
how can I follow the lab?
If you’d like to follow the public data lab’s activities you can find us on Mastodon, Bluesky, Instagram and LinkedIn.
how can I support the lab?
If you appreciate the lab’s work and would like to support it, we welcome donations to our OpenCollective account to help with the costs of our servers, web hosting and other shared expenses.
how did the lab start?
The public data lab was co-founded in 2017 by Jonathan W. Y. Gray, Liliana Bounegru and Tommaso Venturini. Moving between positions and places, they wanted to create a space in which collaborations between a wider network of researchers could grow.
The lab emerged from overlapping initiatives including the Making Things Public exhibition and Climaps project (both co-led by Bruno Latour), as well as govcom.org and gatherings at the Digital Methods Initiative Winter and Summer Schools. Proposals for a lab were developed through meetings and exchanges in Amsterdam, Bath, Copenhagen, London and Paris.
The lab’s founding researchers were Anders Koed Madsen, Anders Kristian Munk, Carolin Gerlitz, Jonathan W. Y. Gray, Kari de Pryck, Liliana Bounegru, Lucy Kimbell, Mathieu Jacomy, Michele Mauri, Noortje Marres, Richard Rogers, Sabine Niederer, Tobias Blanke and Tommaso Venturini.
They brought overlapping backgrounds in science and technology studies, internet studies, digital methods, data visualisation, design studies and visual methods, as well as a shared interest in socially engaged research.