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Artist brings Big Data to life

Microsoft launched a Big Data campaign to spark conversations around Big Data and educate people around the technological tools they can use to tap into its and see the big picture.

As with many other industry buzzwords, Big Data means different things to different people. But it’s commonly accepted that it is a challenge to find, combine, manage and analyse any type and volume of data in order to quickly gain insights and solve problems. In practicality this means, for example, that advertising agencies would be able to improve campaign effectiveness and boost ad revenue with big data by providing crucial analytics to advertisers, faster.

“To most people and organisations, Big Data might be no more than an industry buzzword,” says Kelly Husband, Data Platform Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft SA. “People and organisations need to be made truly aware of the capability Big Data has to deliver the competitive advantage for businesses or empower consumers to do more with the data that they have, and ultimately empower them to transform their businesses.

”Technology has the ability to empower people and organisation to see the big picture from the masses of data that is out there.  Not many people are aware of the power that technology has to manage big data and turn it into meaningful insights and show the big picture.”

To address this, Microsoft South Africa has launched a Big Data campaign entitled See the big picture, to spark conversations around Big Data and educate people around the technological tools they can use to tap into the power of Big Data and see the big picture. As part of this campaign, the company commissioned six young artists to produce works of art that depict Big Data as seemingly meaningless pieces that only make sense or come into focus, when technology is used to interpret the artwork.

For the upcoming piece entitled Cloud, Kgosietsile Ramorola (20) uses a mirror and light to illustrate how Big Data tools can be used to make sense of seemingly meaningless information. “My idea is to use light from the top to get the image that you are looking for. So the mirror works as a Microsoft tool, taking the image or information that’s at an awkward angle and displaying it on the wall in a clearer, bigger and easier to understand way.” 21 year old Njabulo Mziyane explains his train of thought in coming up with his artwork that will be titled Fly on the wall: “I thought of how much data is used every day and decided to amplify the amount of data, by taking something small and making it seem a lot bigger. With magnification as the tool, it demonstrates how a small amount of data can make a huge difference.”

All six pieces of artwork form part of an exhibition at the Mr Price Court in Sandton City, and will be on show during normal shopping hours between 19 June and 3 July. Entrance to the exhibition is free for all visitors.

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