Public Sphere

Reading about Alexander Kluge and his thoughts on the production of 'oppositional public sphere'. Kluge was a documentary film maker critical of the struggles of squatters who required him to come and live with them in order to 'join (and film) their fight' against the authorities who wished to evict them. Kluge argued that by keeping their struggle private they were replicating the structures and methods of the authorities, who were using private means to regain what they saw as private property. By refusing Kluge access unless he embedded himself within their community Kluge argued they were refusing to allow the events, over the next few days of eviction, to enter an oppositional public sphere.

There is maybe a correlation between this methodology and the production and interpretation of public data as a public art project on the ground. Talking specifically about the creation of data Kris Cohen, writing about the group show ‘Day-to-day-data’, hi-lites the role artists might play in subverting the creation of publics. He writes “because whoever makes data makes the publics that data purports merely to describe”.