9.7.1 The dramatic drop in the price of computer disk storage from tens of dollars per megabyte to tens of cents per megabyte in just the last few years has radically changed the economics of collecting and storing massive amounts of data. One of the fastest growing fields in the computer industry is "Data Mining." [4]

9.7.2 Data Mining People is the next step after the Bodies INCorporated project. As I mentioned in chapter 4, Bodies INCorporated was largely driven by audience response and demand. One of the most pressing demands in the final stages was for creation of an online community.

9.7.3 The Information Personae is an excellent engine for data mining, precisely because it searches for people first. Our way to filter through information in the analogue world is to either contact a person we know to be an expert in the area or would know someone who carries the data we are looking for. The goal of the Data Mining People is to externalise this idea by visually displaying the topologies that are a result of this information access and retrieval between people. How our data travel on the networks is generally not accessible or visible to us.

9.7.4 After many hours studying various efforts at visualising network topologies, I concluded that most of the work is focused on information flow and management. The idea behind Data Mining Bodies is very much connected to the inherent philosophy of the agent that is driving the piece, the Information Personae. The visualisation is centred on the people carrying this information and how it shapes their online identities. The design of the space and the way the body looks and acts will be based on these structures. [top]