ARWORK DETAILS
David Aston
Jus Data
Hand carved antique (c.1850) marble slab, gold leaf,
Three glass flasks containing soil, blood and data.
Email linked to Jusdata.co website
17 H x 34 W x 7 D cm
2017
FURTHER DETAILS
As our lives and identities become increasingly defined by online activities, new rights are being established to safeguard our virtual identities and how our data can be used.
Jus means given right, power, or authority. It is used in law to express the most absolute interpretation of right in the eyes of the law and has been used for centuries to express our rights to citizenship.
‘Jus Data’ is a marble sculpture engraved and gilded with six latin words.‘Jus Soli’, the right of soil (the right of anyone born in the territory of a state to nationality or citizenship), ‘Jus Sanguinis', the right of blood (where citizenship is determined by having one or both parents who are citizens of a state) and ’Jus Data’ (the right to data).
The marble is antique and monumental in scale, seeking to amplify the gravitas and permanence of this new right to data. It is accompanied by three laboratory glass flasks containing samples of the three substances: soil, blood and data. The third flask is empty except for an e-mail address (data@jusdata.co), providing the mechanism to engage as digital citizens in data creation. Viewers are encouraged to e-mail the mailbox and in so doing, create the sample data required for the third flask.
‘Jus Data’ acts as a marker of the point when our data rights, our virtual citizenship, are permanently elevated to the level of our citizenship in the physical world.
EXHIBITIONS
2019 - The London Group Open
2018 - The Other Art Fair, London