Information Overload

Information Overload Exhibit: I responded to the theme 'Information Overload' by producing a creative piece of work to be exhibited in a public venue. The term information overload was popularised through Alvin Tofflers 1970 book Futureshock in which he pointed to the effects on decision making resulting from excessive quantities of content. Headline statistics such as 90% of the worlds data has been generated during the past few years and the contemporary views of neuroscientists, learning researchers, marketers and creative artists contribute to voices supporting the debate about the effects of informational multitasking. The evolving data economy has been an influence for artists and visual communicators; Information Texture a mid 80’s promotional poster for the Simpson Paper Company by April Greiman uses the layered language of video technology raising the question ‘how much noise will a graphic message take?’ Hungarian design collective NOMADs Cacophony launches an information assault using analogue cassette tape to play music in a deliberately chaotic manner; Kwon Juk-hee’s installations ‘fromthebooktothespace’ use hand sliced encyclopedia pages to convey the idea of a frozen waterfall of information; Cildo Meireless Babel 2001 is a ‘tower of incomprehension’ made up of hundreds of differently tuned analogue radios which also creates a flow of conflicting inaccessible information; Takashi Murakami’s technicolour palette combined with influences from pop, anime, manga and science fiction is often associated with themes of consumer sensory overload.