The Deceptions of Data
Andrew Prescott King’s College London

Among the many drivers of the current wave of digital transformation is the way in which we are starting to link, manipulate and present in innovative ways large quantities of data generated by previous computing activities. While the exploration of data offers exciting opportunities for new types of scholarly investigations and activities, it can also encourage a suspension of critical disbelief. Data enthusiasts are prone to presenting data as a new intellectual force, with an autonomous quality of its own - a means of escaping from critical and theoretical concerns. Yet data is a historical construct, as complex, deceptive and slippery as any kind of text. There is a risk that new forms of mapping and visualization can conceal the nature of the underlying data and make us forget its difficulties and complexities. This presentation will consider the tensions between the potential of data to offer new intellectual vistas and the tendency for data to be selective, biased or unrepresentative. It will suggest that the critical and intellectual landscape revealed by the exploration of these tensions represents part of the heartland of the digital humanities.