Data Salons

The Sydney Culture Network’s Data Salon is a meet-up for cultural workers interested or involved in the use of cultural data.

The Salon provides a unique forum to share experiences, strategies and tools. With invited talks and discussions, this series explores how data-led research and innovation can inform strategic planning and daily decision making.

Supported by the Sydney Culture Network and UNSW Art & Design.

2021-2024 Salon conveners: Megan Lawrence and Rory McKay.
Salon founders and 2019-2020 conveners: Lizzie Muller and Keir Winesmith.

Next Data Salon

2025 Program of events

Our 2025 program of Data Salons will be anounced soon. If your organisation is already a member of the Sydney Culture Network you can subscribe to our newsletter here.

Previous Salons

Data Salon #20: Illustrating data and design through immersive experiences

25 October 2024
Venue:  Arup SoundLab & LightLab

The Sydney Culture Network were invited to discover data informed environments where you can explore and understand every aspect of light, sound and noise, and then use it to shape desired outcomes. This is the Arup’s SoundLab & LightLab. 

For our 20th Data Salon, our hosts Arup demonstrated how SoundLab uses 3D, full-sphere surround sound technology to play objective, quantifiable models of a design and its sound levels – enabling you to hear, at design stage, what your planned project will sound like when complete. Like how an architect can utilise technology to visualise design concepts, learn how Arup auralise acoustic data to illustrate objective acoustic criteria for their clients. Listening to acoustics in the SoundLab facilitates constructive dialogue and proactive design between client, architect, and acoustician, and it can often be the vehicle for rapid decision making and cost benefit analysis.

The LightLab is another inspiring creative space designed for collaboration and innovation in lighting design. Arup’s in-house designers come together to rig light fittings, test prototypes, and explore new design concepts. The lab provides an exciting environment for experimenting with a diverse array of light sources, allowing designers to fine-tune lighting control scenes, play with colour filters, colour temperatures and luminance intensity. Discover in-house nighttime tools designed to gather data on nighttime experiences for women, girls and gender diverse people in the community, and how we can come together in the lab to demonstrate the positive effects that lighting can bring to a place, based on the data received.

A group of 20 participants experienced both Labs with examples of creative innovation using data to simulate immersive experiences and inform real-world design decisions. It was a wonderful event to celebrate 20 Data Salons in Sydney!

Data Salon #19: Engaging the Pasifika community in exhibition curation 

30 August 2024

What does culturally appropriate engagement with inclusion and representation of creative works made by Pasifika peoples, look like?

Melissa Malu , Head of Pasifika Collections and Engagement at the Australian Museum, shared how her work leading community consultation helped curation of the new Permanent Pasifika Gallery, Wansolmoana. Melissa’s extensive experience in Community development and support for cultural, arts and community programs shaped an appropriate Community engagement for gathering cultural data.

Melissa is a Tongan and Fijian woman who has wide-ranging experience working with Pasifika communities in culture, social impact, and communications. She is an advocate in addressing the issue of Pasifika cultural appropriation, through promoting traditional cultural practices, working towards strengthening Indigenous knowledge within mainstream structures and frameworks.

The Data Salon also had the opportunity to visit the Australian Museum’s new Wansolmoana (One Salt Ocean) exhibition on Level 2 at this meet up with other cultural workers, as part of the Sydney Culture Network’s Data Salon.

Data Salon #18: How consultation data shaped the NSW Creative Communities policy 

1 MAY 2024

Our 18th Data Salon featured two Directors from Create NSW, Mark Crees and David Gordon, who discussed the extensive community consultation data and evaluation that has informed Creative Communities - the NSW Arts, Culture and Creative Industries Policy.

Create NSW Presenters

Mark Crees is Portfolio Director, Create NSW at the NSW Department of Enterprise, Investment and Trade and recently led the development of the Creative Communities policy.  Mark is passionate about the public service, focused on contributing to the common good and influencing outcomes that build and drive community benefit.

Mark has occupied various executive leadership roles for government and the cultural sector across three states and territories (Victoria, Northern Territory and New South Wales) and holds a PhD in Critical Theory from Monash University's Centre for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies. He is an alumni of Deakin University (Philosophy), the Cranlana Centre for Ethical Leadership (Executive Colloquium), the London School of Economics and Political Science (Public Policy Analysis), the International Institute for Management Development (Organizational Leadership: Driving Culture and Performance) and the University of Cambridge Judge Business School (Circular Economy and Sustainability).

David Gordon is Director, Creative Economy at Create NSW, and has held a number of roles across the arts, screen and creative industries portfolio since 2016. Prior to his current role, David was Senior Manager, Research & Evaluation and led analysis of the cultural sector that has been critical to shaping the development of programs, policies and initiatives to drive viability and vibrancy of the arts, screen and cultural sectors in NSW.

Data Salon #17: Behind the tech - Using AI to share memories

1 December 2023

At a time when ‘AI’ is top of mind and the number of living Holocaust survivors is dwindling, the Sydney Jewish Museum has opened an interactive, AI-powered exhibition of Holocaust survivor testimony footage.

Together with the USC Shoah Foundation, the Museum is using AI and next-generation language processing technologies to transform hours of testimony footage into what we call ‘interactive biographies’ or ‘digital survivors’. These technologies allow the visitor to have lifelike conversations in realtime with the digital projections of 6 survivors.

This event is an opportunity for those working in cultural institutions to dive behind the scenes of the tech that we are using to create these moving interactions in the museum space. Our professional team has a lot to share about the platforms we use and how we train the AI in realtime. Join the museum’s Senior Curator, Shannon Biederman and Chief Technology Officer of USC Shoah Foundation, Sam Gustman for a chance to learn and to ask questions about this application of AI technology.

This event was held in-person, at the Sydney Jewish Museum in Darlinghurst, with Sam Gustman Zooming in live.

Data Salon #16: AI & CIs
AUGUST 25, 2023

How do Cultural Institutions (CIs) hold the responsibility for their collections becoming aggregated in the data sets that produce images that might breach IP and/or Copyright? Who is best served when CIs pursue the rapid adoption of digital technology under the guise of openness? 

Join Wiradjuri anti-disciplinary artist Joel Sherwood-Spring with Wiradjuri poet and artist Jazz Money for Sydney Culture Network’s next Data Salon at UTS Gallery, exhibiting Spring’s two-channel video DIGGERMODE during his community-engaged program Objects testify.

Tracing the material and cultural implications of extraction and storage, Joel Sherwood-Spring’s DIGGERMODE addresses the social and environmental ethics of digital technology in constructing, storing, and sharing images—whether in surveillance databases, museum archives, or online. Using artificial intelligence (AI), Spring has created landscapes—in the style of acclaimed Arrernte artist Albert Namatjira—being torn apart by mining machinery. His work confronts the viewer with uncomfortable and overlooked aspects of our networked age, addressing the possibilities of ‘the cloud’ and AI in the context of ongoing colonisation. 

DIGGERMODE is a generative behind-the-servers look into how memory works within platform capitalism. Moving through a series of sites and systems, Spring narrates histories of willing participation in predatory markets and explores how Indigenous artists have manipulated technological and representational forms in the struggle to inscribe one’s self within a regime of inscription. He asks why, here on stolen lands, should we shed a tear for the museum? The symbol of western colonialism. The ideological bastion of the ruling class. Just as the traditional museum is a reflection of nefarious structures larger than itself, its digital upgrade likewise traffics in an ideology of a new class. The tools that run this digital museum, while celebrated for their ability to increase access, are not the neutral deployments that we anticipated.

The artists would like to film the event for future use in their practices.

Presenters

Joel Sherwood Spring is a Wiradjuri anti-disciplinary artist, writer and broadcaster, who works collaboratively on projects that sit outside  established discourses of contemporary art, architecture and power. His discursive and spatial practice examines the contested narratives of  Australia’s urban cultural and Indigenous history in the face of ongoing colonisation. Spring is a Co-Director of Future Method Studio, a collaborative and interdisciplinary practice working across  architecture, installation and speculative projects. In 2021, he guest edited Runway Journal’s 44th issue TIME and was a commissioned artist for Ceremony, the 4th National Indigenous Art Triennial, 2022 at the National Gallery of Australia, curated by Hetti Perkins. 

Jazz Money is a Wiradjuri poet and artist based on Gadigal land, Sydney. Her practice is centred around poetics while producing works that encompass installation, digital, performance, film and print. Jazz’s writing and art has been widely presented, performed and published nationally and internationally. Their first poetry collection, the best-selling how to make a basket (UQP, 2021) won the David Unaipon Award.

Data Salon #15: Discover Dora
MARCH 31, 2023

In our first Data Salon for 2023, we heard how a data-led approach with extensive audience research delivered the AGNSW’s new audio product. When the new Art Gallery of New South Wales building opened to the public in December 2022, a new web App Dora was launched to deliver audios across the expanded art museum campus, accessed via the visitor's own device.

The audio companion App delivers a mosaic of voices and music for visitors to enjoy as they choose their own path through the art, architecture and landscape. The product has been designed to evolve as we collect data on how our visitors engage with both the web App and the audios it delivers. This is a move away from the traditional static audio guide toward a model that allows for a more iterative and fresh approach to a legacy art museum medium.

Data Salon #15 was presented by Francesca Ford, Manager of Digital Projects at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Francesca has worked in digital for over fifteen years as a creative digital creative, product manager, change leader and strategist. She has experience in service delivery, content design and cultural transformation.

DATA SALON #14: GA4 Who’s ready?!
OCTOBER 14, 2022

Google is sunsetting Universal Analytics, so what does Google Analytics 4 (GA4) mean for our digital reporting and what metrics should CIs be considering moving forward? As some of us are still confused around the key differences between GA4 and the older Universal Analytics, in Data Salon #14 we'll be bringing in both client-side and agency-side to discuss what's changing, the pain points and the opportunities to rethink our engagement goals and reporting digital visitation data.

The 14th Data Salon was held at the Australian Museum with presentations by:
•Priyanka Gaunder, Associate Director SEO - Foresight Digital
•Angus Beattie, Head of Tech Partnership – Google
•Oanh Trinh, Analytics Consultant - Louder Group.

DATA SALON #13 SEARCHING THE SEARCH
May 27, 2022

Collections are the heart of many cultural institutions, and what we search for reveals something of ourselves: our interests, our fears, our curiosity or simply what we have forgotten.

Elisa Lee and Brett Tweedie showcased data visualisations of Library collections; illustrating not only how users search a catalogue search, but new ways to bring to light the treasures within as well as the collective interests and concerns of our engaged audience.

Elisa Lee from Unstacked spoke about how Unstacked - Curated by the People showcases your collection and institution locally and globally in real-time through the eyes of the people who use it.

Brett Tweedie recently completed the Digital Collections Catalyst project (2021) for the State Library of Queensland, and will discuss The Topography of Searching project that allows you to generate topographic maps from the words and phrases that appeared in the searches made by people using the library catalogue.
Please save the date, and we will share a registration link in early May.

DATA SALON #12 UNDERSTANDING BLOCKCHAIN & NFTs
NOVEMBER 26, 2021

Are you across the evolving data networks of Blockchain technology? Is your organisation interested in Non-Fungible Token (NFT) smart contracts to buy, track and sell digital artworks? And what kind of artists are embracing this new power to be collected in a persistent virtual way, that’s all very traceable? In this Data Salon we'll hear from digital media artist Patrick Younis, Mehnaz Mia from the recently launched MintNFT project representing a collective of Australian artists, and Nicholas Smith from Artefy, which has successfully carved out a niche in the NFT marketplace and represents a worldwide network of artists. We’ll also discuss sustainability issues of cryptocurrency and ask ourselves - are Australian cultural institutions ready, willing or able to dive into this whole new realm of authentic ownership of data?

Data Salon #11
June 25, 2021

Does your organisation implement consultation data with the curatorial process? 

Dr Mariko Smith, one of the First Nations curators of Unsettled, joins us for our next Data Salon on 25 June sharing how community survey data helped inform the exhibition’s themes and storytelling, digital acquisitions and development of First Nations online content.

Data Salon #10
april 18, 2021

How much does your cultural organisation focus on Facebook (FB) sharing information with your audience? Do you channel marketing spend into FB to reach new audiences? What would the cultural sector’s digital ecosystem be like without FB? And even more confronting for customer data analytics addicts - if Google left the country!?

Featuring Gaven Morris, Director of News at the ABC, sharing the public broadcaster’s experience of Facebook blocking news on their platform in Australia, how the ABC and others reacted, as well as thoughts on how much do we as publishers of content (and our audiences) rely on the platform.

Data Salon #9
november 27, 2020

How is performance data collected, stored and accessed in archives? What are the problems, challenges and opportunities presented by such case studies within a visual arts institution? What can performance archive methodologies and processes share with museums and galleries in their handling of such cases? How do we understand: object v event; artwork v documentation; metadata, classification, and stealth acquisition? How do we challenge hierarchies of value? Featuring Dr. Jonathan Bollen, Senior Lecturer, Theatre and Performance Studies, UNSW and Claire Eggleston, Senior Librarian, AGNSW. With guest host: Dr. Erin Brannigan, Senior Lecturer, Theatre and Performance, UNSW.

Data Salon #8
September 25, 2020

This salon was led by Nathan Sentance and Jazz Money, exploring a range of issues including the digitisation of Indigenous cultural objects, stories and knowledges and decolonial approaches to archival practices and institutions.

Data Salon #7
June 26, 2020

Data driven decision making for a post COVID transition, with the Australian Council and Sydney Opera House.

Data Salon #6
May 1, 2020

Cultural data responses to COVID, with the Casula Powerhouse and Art Gallery of NSW.

Data Salon #5
FEBRUARY 28, 2020

Location responsive museum interpretation, with the Hyde Park Barracks (Sydney Living Museums).

Data Salon #4
DEcember 6, 2019

Digitisation at scale, with The Powerhouse (Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences).

Data Salon #3
september 27, 2019

#NewSelfWales by the numbers - mixing user and collection data, with the State Library of NSW.

Data Salon #2
july 26, 2019

Social data and CRM (cutsomer relationship management) practices, with the Art Gallery of NSW.

Data Salon #1
may 31, 2019

Workshop to establish future data salon topics, hosted by UNSW Art & Design.

Contact us

Email the conveners at sydney@data-salon.org to ask a question,
suggest a topic or offer to host.